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Presented    by  \-V-o-^  .c5o\nYn"X3<s\A3  \-W  ,:D  ZD 

IK^X  9843  .H5  S4  1891 

Hedge,  Frederic  Henry,  1805- 

1890. 
Sermons 


SERMONS. 


SERMONS. 


BY 


FREDERIC   HENRY  HEDGE,  D.D.,  LL.D. 

AUTHOR   OF 

REASON    IN   RELIGION,"    "WAYS  OF   THE  SPIRIT,"    "HOURS  WITH  GERMAN 
CLASSICS,"    "atheism    IN    PHILOSOPHY,"    "  THE    PRIMEVAL 
WORLD   OF   HEBREW   TRADITION." 


BOSTON: 

ROBERTS     BROTHERS. 

1891. 


Copyright,  1891, 
By  Roberts  Brothers. 


©ntbtrstts  Press: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge,  U.S.A. 


CONTENTS. 


Page 

I.  Three  Views  of  Life 1 

II.  Authorities  and  Scribes 21 

III.  The  Lesson  of  Flowers 35 

IV.  Nothing  to  Draw  with 50 

V.  The  Pure  in  Heart  shall  see  God  ....  68 

VI.  The  Soul's  Deliverance 81 

VII.  Reserved  Power 97 

VIII.  The  Gospel  of  Manual  Labor 109 

IX.  The  Lot  of  the  Called 120 

X.  The  Baptist  and  the  Christ 139 

XI.  The  Broad  Church 150 

XII.  Love  cancels  Obligation     .......  171 

XIII.  And  wished  for  Day 183 

XIV.  All  Things  to  all  Men 199 

XV.  Strength  in  Weakness 211 

XVI.  Spirits  in  Prison 224 


VI  CONTENTS. 

Page 

XVII.    The  Spirit's  Rest 235 

XVIII.  The  Religion  of  the  Resurrection    .    .    .  219 

XIX.    Love  is  of  God 261 

XX.    Our  Life  is  in  God 276 

XXI.    The  Comforter 288 

XXII.    All  Souls'  Day 301 

XXIII.  Conscience 315 

XXIV.  The  Future  Life 329 


I. 

THEEE   VIEWS   OF  LIFE. 

Give  me  the  portion  of  goods  that  falleth  to  me. 

Luke  xv.  12. 

Nay  ;  but  I  will  verily  buy  it  for  the  full  price. 

1  Chron.  xxi.  24. 

It  is  more  blessed  to  give  than  to  receive. 

Acts  xx.  35. 

/^UK  manner  of  life  will  depend  very  much  on 
^^  the  view  we  take  of  the  meaning  and  ends 
of  life.  Our  practice  will  correspond  with  our  the- 
ory. Perhaps  you  have  no  definite  theory  on  the 
subject.  You  may  not  be  conscious  of  entertain- 
ing one.  I  suppose  very  few  are  conscious  of  any 
such  thing.  You  do  not  speculate ;  you  do  not  rea- 
son ;  you  project  no  elaborate  scheme ;  you  seldom 
say  distinctly  to  yourself,  This  is  my  view  and  plan 
of  life,  and  such  is  the  use  I  intend  to  make  of 
myself  and  the  world.  Nevertheless,  we  all  have 
our  theory,  conscious  or  unconscious.  We  have 
our  general  idea  of  life,  which  consciously  or  un- 
consciously underlies  our  scheming  and  our  dream- 

1 


2  THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE. 

ing,  according  to  which  our  course  is  shaped,  and 
according  to  which  our  destiny  proceeds. 

Now,  there  are  three  principal  views  of  life  indi- 
cated in  the  three  brief  passages  of  Scripture  which 
I  have  quoted.  I  will  call  them  the  childish  view, 
the  manly  view,  and  the  heroic  view. 

1.  The  first  is  tlie  cliildish  view.  Its  lanofuagce 
is,  "  Give  me  the  portion  of  goods  that  falleth  to 
me."  Observe  the  expression,  "  falleth  to  me,"  — as 
if  anything  fell  to  us  of  right.  The  distinguishing 
principle  in  this  view  of  life  is  having  without  get- 
ting, unconditional  reception,  gratuitous  bounty, 
unmerited  luck:  "Give  me  the  portion  of  goods 
that  falleth  to  me."  You  remember  who  it  was 
that  the  Scripture  represents  as  making  this  de- 
mand. It  was  the  Prodigal  Son  in  the  parable. 
His  subsequent  career  is  a  signal  illustration  of 
the  natural  tendency  and  practical  operation  of 
this  view  of  life.  This  young  man,  it  seems, — 
very  young  he  must  have  been,  and  very  green  in 
his  judgments  and  expectations,  —  looked  out  upon 
the  world  from  beneath  the  paternal  roof,  and  saw 
there  something  that  drew  him  with  irresistible 
attraction. 

What  was  it?  A  life  of  active  usefulness?  Hon- 
orable distinction,  the  respect  and  good-will  of  his 
fellow-citizens,  the  consciousness  of  well-doing, 
well-merited  success  ?     Nothinor  of  the  sort  I     He 


THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE.  3 

was  not  looking  in  that  direction.  He  saw  a  vision 
of  a  fast  young  man,  centre  of  a  choice  circle  of 
boon  companions  of  both  sexes,  occupying  them- 
selves with  games  of  chance,  tossing  the  incon- 
stant dice,  or  reclining  at  the  mighty  banquet,  the 
sparkling  wine-cup  in  their  hands,  the  festive  chap- 
let  on  their  brows,  enjoying  "  the  good  things  that 
are  present,"  and  "  speedily  using  the  creatures 
as  in  youth."  This  was  his  vision  of  a  blessed 
life.  And  he  said  to  his  father,  "  Give  me  the 
portion  of  goods  that  falleth  to  me."  And  the 
father,  who  should  have  known  better,  gave  it  to 
him.  Foolish  man !  He  has  a  son  who  is  bound 
for  destruction,  and  he  gives  him  a  swift  horse 
to  carry  him  thither !  Forbear,  rash  father  !  Re- 
sist thy  son's  importunate  desire !  If  he  ask  for 
money,  give  him  work.  If  he  come  to  thee  for  a 
living,  send  him  to  Joppa,  place  him  in  charge  of 
some  prudent  shipmaster,  to  do  business  on  the 
great  waters,  to  struggle  with  the  elements  ;  or 
bind  him  apprentice  to  some  useful  handicraft. 
But  by  all  means  withhold  from  him  yet  that  por- 
tion of  goods,  nor  send  a  young  man  into  the 
world  with  large  means  and  little  sense  and  no 
principle,  and  no  guidance  but  his  own  mad  will. 

It  is  not  my  design  to  follow  out  this  particular 
case  of  practical  aberration  resulting  from  a  false 
and  foolish  theory  of  life.     It  is  one  of  the  proofs 


4  THREE    VIEWS  OF  LIFE. 

of  the  blessed  Master's  insight  into  human  char- 
acter that  thus  deduces  the  profligate  life  of  the 
prodigal  son  from  the  false  expectation  with  which 
he  begins  his  career. 

"  Give  me  the  portion  of  goods  that  falleth  to 
me."  How  many  young  men  set  out  in  life  with 
this  demand,  thinking  more  of  their  fancied  claims 
than  they  do  of  their  real  obligations,  more  of  luck 
than  of  work,  of  that  which  is  to  fall  to  them  than 
of  what  they  are  to  win  by  their  own  labor;  re- 
garding life  as  a  game  of  chance  instead  of  a  long 
and  laborious  task,  —  the  world  as  a  house  of  en- 
tertainment, board  and  lodging  free,  or  nearly  so, 
and  sumptuous  at  that,  —  everything  that  heart  can 
wish,  with  very  little  trouble  in  the  getting  of  it ! 
This  childish  view  of  life  has  many  modifications. 
One  expects  his  portion  of  goods  to  fall  to  him  by 
inheritance  ;  another  expects  it  by  special  indul- 
gence from  the  world.  Here  is  one  who  has  no 
thought  of  maintaining  himself  by  any  adequate 
exertion  of  his  own ;  and  there  one  whose  notion 
of  self-maintenance  consists  in  so  watching  his 
opportunity  as  to  snatch  a  competence  by  some 
lucky  hit,  some  financial  operation  which  creates 
no  real  values,  but  realizes  large  profits  on  the 
faith  of  artificial  ones. 

In  either  case,  and  in  all  cases  where  this  view 
is  held,  whether  consciously  or  unconsciously,  the 


THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE.  5 

main  point  is  having  without  producing,  or  having 
beyond  all  proportion  more  than  one  produces  by 
legitimate  effort.  The  view  implies  an  imaginary 
claim,  —  the  portion  that  falleth  to  me:  as  if  any- 
thing fell  to  us  of  right ;  as  if  the  mere  fact  of  our 
existence  and  our  wants  created  a  claim  to  any- 
thing more  than  the  requisite  faculty  by  which 
that  existence  is  maintained  and  those  wants  sup- 
plied. This  is  all  that  Nature  furnishes  to  any  of 
her  children.  No  creature  is  supported  without 
an  adequate  outlay  of  strength  or  skill,  or  without 
some  equivalent  in  return  for  its  maintenance. 
Wliy  should  man,  of  all  creatures  the  most  richly 
endowed,  with  faculties  equal  to  all  the  exigencies 
of  his  complex  life,  —  why  should  he  be  indulged 
with  an  ease  accorded  to  no  creature  besides  ? 

You  say  your  existence  is  not  voluntary,  —  you 
did  not  ask  to  be ;  you  were  thrust  into  the  world 
without  any  will  of  your  own :  the  world  which 
produced  you  is  bound  to  maintain  you ;  the  world 
owes  you  a  living.  It  may  be  so ;  but  whether  or 
not  the  obligation  exists  on  the  part  of  the  world 
is  a  matter  of  no  practical  consequence.  It  is  cer- 
tain that  the  world  will  not  maintain  you  except 
on  certain  conditions.  You  must  either  work  or 
steal,  by  whatever  name  you  call  your  stealing. 
Every  other  existence  is  just  as  uncalled  for  as 
your  own.     Beast,  bird,  and  insect  did  not  ask  to 


6  THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE. 

be ;  they  are  thrust  upon  the  world  without  any 
wish  or  will  of  their  own.  But  if  one  of  these 
creatures  should  deny  its  instincts,  and  call  upon 
Nature  to  maintain  it,  and  take  no  thought  for 
itself,  there  is  no  provision  made  for  it :  none  of 
its  tribe  will  minister  to  it ;  it  must  inevitably  per- 
ish. Your  existence  is  forced  upon  you ;  but  along 
with  that  existence  are  given  you  the  faculties  and 
organs  needful  for  your  support,  —  the  reasoning 
mind,  the  cunning  hand,  brain,  sinews,  muscles, — 
and,  for  capital,  a  vast  amount  of  hereditary  knowl- 
edge, the  accumulated  wisdom  of  all  preceding 
generations.  With  this  outfit  your  claim  is  satis- 
fied ;  you  have  no  fair  title  to  anything  more  than 
this,  except  as  you  create  one  by  your  service. 
Beyond  this  the  world  owes  you  nothing  but  wages 
for  your  work. 

Let  us  see  what  kind  of  character  is  likely  to  go 
with  the  childish  view  of  life,  what  kind  of  charac- 
ter it  is  likely  to  produce,  what  kind  of  life  he  is 
likely  to  lead  who  is  looking  for  something  to 
fall  to  him  without  compensation.  Self-indulgence, 
luxurious  indolence,  will  form  the  distinguishing 
trait  in  such  a  character  and  such  a  life,  —  that 
indolence,  which,  if  not  the  most  deadly,  is  the 
most  incurable  of  moral  diseases,  lodging  itself  in 
the  marrow  of  the  bones,  and  becoming  a  compo- 
nent part  of  the  system  it  attacks.     And  indolence 


THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE.  7 

loves  company.  Profligate  and  dissolute  life  is  its 
natural  concomitant.  He  who  takes  his  portion  of 
goods  without  an  equivalent  will  not  be  very  scru- 
pulous as  to  the  amount  which  he  takes.  The 
principle  is  the  same,  whether  he  takes  much  or 
little.  When  once  a  man  opens  an  account  with 
his  neighbor  for  goods  which  he  has  no  means  and 
no  serious  intention  of  paying  for,  he  is  not  careful 
to  limit  the  amount  by  the  actual  necessities  of  his 
condition.  He  will  go  on  taking  as  long  as  goods 
and  credit  last. 

Neither  will  such  a  character  be  likely  to  use 
with  moderation  the  portion  of  goods  which  he 
takes.  That  which  is  easily  got  is  easily  dissi- 
pated ;  and  he  who  begins  by  living  without  cost  to 
himself  will  be  likely  to  end  with  the  heaviest  cost 
wliich  a  man  can  pay  for  his  living,  —  the  price  of 
his  innocence. 

Or  suppose  this  view  of  life  to  be  entertained 
with  somewhat  different  modifications.  Suppose 
it  to  be  entertained  by  a  person  of  some  energy, 
who  is  not  content  to  be  inactive,  and  does  not 
look  to  be  maintained  without  effort,  but  whose 
idea  and  expectation  are  to  acquire  a  sudden  and 
ample  fortune,  with  the  least  possible  outlay  of 
actual  labor.  In  that  case  the  life  will  not  be  an 
indolent  and  dissolute  one,  but  a  life  of  cunning: 
and  intrigue,  a  life  spent  in  speculating  on  the 


8  THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE. 

industry  and  credulity  of  others,  instead  of  toiling 
and  amassing  for  one's  self.  Most  of  our  politi- 
cians by  profession  are  of  this  class.  The  world 
abounds  in  characters  and  lives  of  this  descrip- 
tion. There  is  a  prevalent  shrinking  from  hard 
work,  —  a  disposition  to  throw  off  the  burden  of 
productive  industry  on  those  who  are  forced  by 
necessity  to  undertake  it ;  to  strike  out  easier  and 
quicker  roads  to  wealth,  while  others  plod  the 
rugged  way  to  delving  toil;  to  play  at  dice  with 
the  world  ;  to  gamble  for  one's  portion  of  goods 
instead  of  working  for  it,  without  considering  very 
nicely  the  rules  of  fair  play,  if  any  such  rules 
there  be  in  such  a  game.  The  clerk  in  the  shop 
or  counting-room  who  embezzles  the  proceeds  of 
his  master's  business  to  defray  the  cost  of  his 
pleasant  vices,  the  agent  of  a  joint-stock  company 
who  appropriates  the  general  funds,  are  the  natu- 
ral products  of  this  tendency.  It  manifests  itself 
in  other  ways.  The  excess  of  trade  over  humbler 
and  more  laborious  pursuits,  the  abuse  of  credit, 
financiering  on  the  large  and  the  small  scale,  spec- 
ulations and  peculations,  and  whatever  else  par- 
takes of  this  character,  are  all  symptoms  of  the 
manifold  and  wide-spread  disease  engendered  by 
this  false  view  of  life. 

But,  aside  from  these,  the  state  of  mind  which 
this  view  originates  in  or  presupposes  is  radically 


THREE    VIEWS  OF  LIFE,  9 

wrong,  and  at  war  with  the  evident  design  of 
Deity  implied  in  the  human  organism.  Every 
muscle  in  the  human  body  is  a  protest  against  it. 
Every  faculty  in  the  human  mind  refutes  and  con- 
demns it.  By  every  muscle  in  his  body  and  by 
every  faculty  in  his  mind,  man  is  called  and  bound 
and  dedicated  by  God  to  labor. 

Some  allowance  must  be  made  for  the  difficulty, 
in  many  cases,  of  finding  the  needful  employment 
and  a  sphere  of  action  congenial  with  or  suited  to 
one's  powers.  There  come  to  us  beggars  who  beg 
for  work.  A  very  legitimate  kind  of  begging  is 
that.  Sad  that  we  should  ever  be  unable  to  satisfy 
that  demand,  —  that  we  cannot  always  bring  those 
muscles  and  sinews,  that  good-will  and  faculty, 
into  fruitful  contact  with  the  world  of  matter  and 
the  necessary  tasks  of  society.  Sad  the  spectacle 
of  young  men  or  young  women  who  are  willhig  to 
work  and  can  find  no  work  to  do.  Sad  the  will 
without  the  opportunity,  but  sadder  still  the  oppor- 
tunity without  the  will.  There  is  no  more  mel- 
ancholy spectacle  than  to  see  a  young  man  in  the 
bloom  of  life,  with  sound  health  and  a  perfect 
organization,  shrinking  from  labor  and  suffering 
his  days  to  glide  away  without  profit  to  himself 
or  the  world. 

Suppose  some  costly  ship,  designed  to  navigate 
the   seas,  never  to  become   acquainted   with   her 


10  THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE, 

proper  element,  never  to  dip  her  keel  into  the 
wave,  never  to  feel  the  surge  against  her  bows 
and  the  spray  in  her  rigging,  but  to  remain  for- 
ever high  and  dry  in  the  ship-yard,  sliored  and 
propped  and  carefully  stayed  to  keep  her  in  place, 
and  converted,  perhaps,  into  a  storehouse  or  a 
house  of  entertainment,  stuffed  with  good  things 
for  home  consumption,  instead  of  following  her 
natural  vocation  on  the  wide  deep;  or  sujipose 
that,  being  launched,  instead  of  traversing  the  seas 
from  continent  to  continent,  and  taking  and  dis- 
charging cargoes  at  Calcutta  or  Sydney  or  Boston, 
she  should  float  a  mere  pleasure-barge  on  the 
river's  tide.  That  gallant  vessel  would  not  more 
lamentably  fail  of  her  destination  than  the  healthy, 
vigorous,  and  well-endowed  youth  who  has  no  part 
in  the  world's  work,  no  path  on  the  world's  deep, 
no  calling,  no  mission  to  his  fellow-men,  no  aim 
or  aspiration  but  to  take  the  portion  of  goods  that 
falleth  to  him,  no  business  but  to  enjoy  them  to 
the  uttermost  capacity  of  his  stomach. 

2.  We  come,  then,  to  the  second  view,  —  what 
I  call  the  manly  view  of  life.  "Nay;  but  I  will 
verily  buy  it  for  the  full  price."  These  are  the 
words  of  David  to  Oman  concerning  a  piece  of 
land  which  David  was  to  purchase  in  order  to 
erect  upon  it  an  altar  to  Jehovah.  The  land  was 
Oman's  threshingfloor.     "  Grant  me,"  said  David, 


THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE.  H 

"  the  place  of  this  threshingfloor,  that  I  may  build 
an  altar  therein  unto  the  Lord."  Now,  when  Oman 
learned  the  purpose  for  which  David  designed  the 
land,  he  offered  it  to  him  without  price.  He  would 
be  happy  to  make  him  a  present  of  the  lot.  "Take 
it  to  thee,  and  let  my  lord  the  king  do  that  which 
is  good  in  his  eyes :  lo,  I  give  thee  the  oxen  also 
for  burnt  offerings,  and  the  threshing  instruments 
for  wood,  and  the  wheat  for  the  meat  offering ;  I 
give  it  all."  But  David  was  a  man  of  large  nature 
and  lofty  spirit ;  he  did  not  choose  to  get  property 
for  the  Lord  in  that  way. 

Perhaps  he  was  over-scrupulous.  If  a  Christian 
society  at  the  present  day,  about  to  build  a  church, 
should  have  an  offer  of  a  piece  of  land  to  be  given 
them  for  that  purpose,  I  fancy  they  would  not  hes- 
itate long  to  accept  the  gift.  But  David  felt  dif- 
ferently. He  was  a  proud  man,  and  he  declined 
the  gift.  "And  king  David  said  to  Oman,  Nay; 
but  I  will  verily  buy  it  for  the  full  price :  for  I  will 
not  take  that  which  is  thine  for  the  Lord,  nor  offer 
burnt  offerings  without  cost."  And  he  gave  him 
what  he  held  to  be  a  sufficient  price. 

You  observe  here  a  principle  of  action  involving 
an  entirely  different  view  of  life  from  that  which 
we  have  been  considering,  and  which  I  called  the 
childish  view.  It  is  that  view  which  regards  life 
as  an  obligation,  not  as  a  claim;  as  a  dispensation 


12  THREE    VIEWS  OF  LIFE. 

of  tasks  and  duties,  and  not  of  gratuitous  favors ; 
which  regards  the  world  as  a  seed-field  where  each 
must  dig  and  plant  for  himself,  and  where  personal 
effort  is  the  just  and  necessary  equivalent  for  every 
advantage,  and  not  as  a  storehouse  of  goods  where 
all  have  free  access  and  may  help  tliemselves  to 
such  things  as  they  like,  —  or  rather  as  a  safe,  of 
which  some  favored  few  have  the  key,  and  may 
take  the  portion  of  goods  that  falleth  to  them  by 
special  grace. 

Of  this  view  observe,  first,  its  essential  agreement 
with  the  nature  of  man,  its  fitness  in  relation  to 
the  human  constitution.  Every  nerve  in  our  body 
is  an  argument  for  it.  Man  is  made  and  consti- 
tuted a  working  being.  It  is  only  by  labor  that  he 
can  realize  what  is  in  him,  —  the  measure  of  his 
powers,  the  measure  of  his  joys,  full  development, 
full  stature,  full  satisfaction.  He  must  work  not 
only  to  be  truly  happy  and  at  peace  with  himself 
and  the  world,  but  he  must  work  to  be  truly  human. 
And  if  any  one  thinks  to  thrive  without  work,  he 
will  find  erelong  that  Nature  has  not  been  consulted 
in  that  arrangement.  One  faculty  after  another 
goes  to  sleep,  one  satisfaction  after  another  dies 
out,  one  hold  upon  the  world  after  another  gives 
way,  and  at  last  there  remains  only  the  human 
automaton,  with  all  its  life  reduced  to  one  or  two 
senses,  and  all  its  consciousness  concentrated  in 


THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE,  13 

a  half-waking  dream  of  self.  We  read  of  a  Ro- 
man who  vegetated  after  this  fashion,  and  was 
treated  as  one  dead  by  his  acquaintance.  They 
wrote  upon  his  house,  as  on  a  tomb :  "  Here  lies 
Servilius." 

Observe,  next,  the  agreement  between  this  view 
of  life  and  the  constitution  of  the  universe  consid- 
ered as  a  system  of  legislation,  where  everything 
has  its  price,  where  inexorable  law  has  establislied 
a  fixed  ratio  between  income  and  outlay,  and  pro- 
portioned the  worth  of  every  product  to  the  price 
it  costs,  —  that  is,  to  the  labor  and  care  involved  in 
its  production.  We  need  not  search  far  to  find 
evidence  of  such  a  law,  or  to  trace  its  operation  in 
nature  and  life.  A  glance  at  the  universe  shows 
how  all  things  are  conditioned,  and  how  no  real 
good  can  spring  from  the  bosom  of  Nature  or 
the  mind  of  man  without  its  equivalent  outlay  of 
faculty  and  labor.  There  is  no  luck  in  Nature,  but 
a  rigorous  legislation  extending  to  the  minutest 
particulars  and  last  details  of  life.  Take  any 
product  of  the  vegetable  world.  Examine  an  ear  of 
corn,  and  study  its  law.  There  was  only  one  pos- 
sible way  in  which  that  ear  could  grow,  having  pre- 
cisely that  character  and  no  other.  That  way 
includes  unnumbered  details,  some  of  which  you 
can  trace,  and  many  of  which  you  cannot  trace. 
Form,  color,  size,  everything  pertaining  to  it,  de- 


14  THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE. 

pends  on  antecedent  conditions ;  and  if  one  of 
those  antecedents  had  failed,  that  particular  ear 
of  corn  could  never  have  been.  So  exact  are  the 
laws  of  the  natural  world. 

Do  you  suppose  that  the  laws  of  the  moral 
world  are  less  so?  There,  too,  there  is  no  hap. 
It  is  all  legislation,  law.  On  every  good  that  life 
offers  a  price  is  set.  For  every  advantage  that 
man  wins  there  is  a  just  equivalent ;  and  for  every 
indulgence  that  a  man  steals  there  is  also  a  just 
equivalent  exacted  by  immutable  necessity.  You 
may  think  to  have  your  portion  of  wordly  goods 
without  paying  for  it ;  but  pay  for  it  you  must, 
somewhere  and  somehow.  There  is  no  evading  the 
universal  law,  subtle  as  light  and  hard  as  adamant. 
You  may  pay  the  price  before  or  after,  as  you  see 
fit,  —  before  with  adequate  effort,  after  with  inevi- 
table reckoning,  —  but  pay  it  you  must.  You  are 
caught  in  the  coil  of  this  dilemma,  and  shall  in  no 
wise  come  out  thence  till  you  have  paid  the  utter- 
most farthing.  In  the  way  of  action  or  of  suffer- 
ing you  must  render  an  equivalent  for  all  that  you 
have  received  of  talent,  opportunity,  gifts,  and 
goods.  The  true  wisdom  is  to  face  the  fact  with  a 
resolute  acceptance  of  your  position  and  responsi- 
bilities, to  front  the  world  with  a  full  understand- 
ing that  you  can  have  nothing  without  paying  for  it, 
and  a  fixed  determination  to  take  nothing  without 


THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE.  15 

paying  for  it,  to  pay  as  you  go,  and  to  pay  the  full 
price. 

Consider,  lastly,  the  intrinsic  justice  of  this  view 
in  relation  to  society.  The  well-being  of  society 
requires  that  each  individual  should  contribute  his 
quota  to  the  common  stock.  If  one  may  ask  for 
the  portion  of  goods  that  falleth  to  him  without  so 
contributing,  then  all  may;  and  if  all  were  to  wait 
for  what  falls  to  them,  there  would  be  no  portion 
for  any.  We  owe  it  not  only  to  the  present  well- 
being  of  mankind  to  render  as  we  receive ;  we  owe 
it  to  the  past.  We  are  debtors  to  the  race,  and 
that  to  an  extent  which  we  can  but  imperfectly  re- 
pay at  the  best.  Compare  your  position  in  the 
present  condition  of  society  with  that  of  primitive 
man.  Think  of  the  countless  blessings  of  civilized 
life,  from  the  roof  which  shelters  to  the  book  which 
enlightens  or  entertains  you,  to  the  religion  which 
elevates  and  saves  you,  —  blessings  which  are  life 
itself  to  the  civilized  man,  which  could  not  be  abol- 
ished without  loosening  the  bands  of  society  and 
sending  each  individual,  a  solitary  savage,  into  the 
wilderness,  —  think  of  these,  and  consider  whence 
they  are  derived.  What  we  call  civilization  is  the 
product  of  slow  millenniums  of  faithful  toil,  the 
gradual  contributions  of  millions  in  times  past  of 
such  as  did  not  ask  for  the  portion  of  goods  that 
might  fall  to  them,  but  said,  "  Nay  ;   but  I  will 


16  THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE, 

verily  buy  it  for  the  full  price,"  and  often  paid 
more  than  the  price  for  the  portion  which  fell  to 
them  of  worldly  good. 

Do  you  feel  no  call  to  emulate  their  example, 
and  out  of  your  ability  to  pay  back  at  least  some 
small  fraction  of  the  infinite  debt  to  society  ?  You 
may  not  be  able  to  impart  any  gift  or  create  any 
value  which  shall  cause  your  name  to  be  inscribed 
among  the  benefactors  of  the  race.  Well,  then, 
impart  what  you  have,  give  what  you  can  of  your 
want,  as  these  of  their  abundance.  Your  faculty 
such  as  it  is,  your  time,  your  good-will,  the  work 
of  your  head  or  your  hands,  your  earthly  life,  your 
uttermost,  whatever  it  is,  —  out  with  it,  and  in  with 
it  into  the  common  stock  !  Let  it  go  for  what  it  is 
worth,  and  be  sure  it  will  count  in  the  great  re- 
sult,—  the  ground  edifice  of  society,  where  so  many 
myriad  lives  and  works  are  fitly  framed  together 
and  compacted  by  that  which  every  joint  supplieth. 
Every  effort  tells.  It  was  well  said  that  he  who 
causes  two  ears  of  corn  to  grow  where  only  one 
grew  before  is  a  benefactor  to  society.  The  unit 
of  your  labor,  be  it  never  so  insignificant,  is  an 
integral  constituent  in  the  sum  of  things. 

3.  I  can  only  glance,  in  conclusion,  at  the  third 
and  highest  view  of  life,  which  I  term  the  heroic,  — 
the  view  implied  in  the  saying,  "  It  is  more  blessed 
to  give  than  to  receive ; "  the  view  of  those  who  not 


THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE.  17 

only  disdain  to  receive  their  portion  of  goods 
without  an  equivalent,  who  not  only  expect  and 
desire  to  pay  for  what  they  get,  but  who  do  not 
even  expect  to  get  the  equivalent,  in  any  market 
sense,  for  what  they  give ;  who  do  not  think  of 
remuneration  in  kind,  who  are  willing  to  labor  and 
to  give,  hoping  for  nothing  again.  These  are  the 
heroes  of  society,  without  whom,  alas !  how  poor 
and  barren  our  earthly  life !  What  a  world  it 
would  be  on  which  we  are  cast,  if  nothing  had  ever 
been  done  in  it  without  pay  !  How  large  a  portion 
of  the  dearest  blessings  of  life  would  be  wanting  to 
us  at  this  moment  but  for  those  who  were  willing 
to  spend  and  be  spent  without  hope  of  reward,  — 
those  hero  priests  who  have  sacrificed,  each  in  their 
day,  at  the  altar  of  human  weal,  and  whose  sacrifice 
was  their  life  1  The  grandest  things  that  have 
been  done  in  this  world  have  been  done  without 
pay,  for  this  reason,  if  no  other,  that  the  world 
was  never  rich  enough  to  pay  the  doers  of  them. 
There  was  never  money  enough  coined  to  satisfy 
their  just  demands.  When  Moses  placed  himself 
at  the  head  of  his  people,  and  led  them  forth,  and 
humanity  with  them,  from  the  bondage  of  Egypt, 
through  all  the  perils  and  privations  of  the  desert, 
to  the  land  of  promise,  he  had  not  been  hired  for 
that  work  by  the  job  nor  by  the  day.  When  the 
Christian   confessors   of   the  first  three  centuries 

2 


18  THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE, 

built  up  painfully,  out  of  their  labors  and  their  sor- 
rows, their  lives  and  their  deaths,  the  stupendous 
fabric  of  the  Christian  Church,  they  did  not  sit 
down  first  and  consider,  Would  it  pay,  was  it  labor 
well  invested  ?  When  Gregory  the  Great  adminis- 
tered, in  the  stormy  time  on  which  he  was  cast, 
amid  the  agonies  of  a  dying  world,  the  perplexed 
affairs  of  the  Roman  see,  he  did  not  do  it  by  con- 
tract. When  Clarkson  toiled  and  planned  and 
struggled  and  contrived  ;  when,  baffled  and  disap- 
pointed, he  still  returned  to  the  charge,  and 
struggled  on,  through  twenty  long  years,  for  the 
abolition  of  the  slave-trade,  —  he  did  not  do  it  on 
speculation.  When  Eliot,  with  incredible  pains, 
translated  the  Bible  into  Indian  for  the  use  of  the 
natives  of  Massachusetts,  he  did  not  work  for  so 
much  a  page,  and  had  no  thought  of  literary  fame. 
What  shall  I  more  say  ?  The  time  would  fail  me 
to  tell  of  countless  others  who,  by  reason  of  the 
faith  that  was  in  them,  and  the  dutiful  zeal,  and  the 
mighty  love,  "  subdued  kingdoms,  wrought  right- 
eousness, obtained  promises,  out  of  weakness  were 
made  strong,  waxed  valiant  in  fight,  turned  to 
flight  the  armies  of  the  aliens."  Thank  God  for  all 
such !  Blessed  are  ye,  heroes,  victors,  glory-crowned 
in  the  good  fight  of  faith!  Blessed  in  all  the 
heavens  of  your  renown,  blessed  in  the  fruit  of  your 
works,  blessed  in  the  memory  of  all  generations ! 


THREE    VIEWS   OF  LIFE.  19 

And,  oh,  ye  shining  ones,  "  our  betters,  yet  our 
peers,  how  desert  without  you  our  few  and  evil 
years !  '* 

The  heroic  view  of  life  is  not  urged  as  a  duty, 
but  only  commended  as  a  lesson  and  illustration  of 
what  is  in  man,  and  what  may  come  of  him  when 
the  spirit  obtains  complete  ascendancy  over  the 
flesh.  Thus  much,  at  least,  we  may  learn  from 
it,  —  to  think  more  of  giving  than  of  receiving, 
more  of  the  work  than  the  wages  in  our  scheme  of 
life.  Happy  they  who  know  their  calling  and  pur- 
sue it,  whose  hands  have  found  their  proper  work 
and  do  it  with  their  might,  rejoicing  as  a  strong 
man  to  run  a  race !  It  is  manly  and  good  to  tax 
one's  self  to  the  uttermost  for  personal  advantage. 
It  is  better  and  heroic  to  tax  one's  self  to  the  utter- 
most, without  regard  to  personal  advantage,  from 
pure  devotion  to  the  calling  to  which  we  are  called, 
the  work  or  craft  that  employs  our  powers,  and  a 
generous  zeal  for  the  common  good,  asking  not 
what  portion  of  goods  may  fall  to  us  of  grace,  nor 
even  how  much  we  can  buy  by  paying  the  full  price, 
but  how  much  by  loving  industry  and  unwearied 
pains  it  may  be  in  our  power  to  contribute  to  the 
world's  riches  and  the  world's  growth.  And  as 
such  a  life  is  noblest  in  itself,  so  it  is  in  the  end 
most  profitable  to  those  that  engage  in  it.  No  labor 
so  productive  as  that  which  we  give  to  an  object 


20  THREE    VIEWS  OF  LIFE. 

for  its  own  sake.  The  more  we  forget  ourselves  in 
our  doings,  the  greater  the  returns  they  will  yield. 
The  more  we  are  willing  to  lose  our  life  in  our  pur- 
suit, the  more  surely  we  shall  find  in  it  the  fruit  of 
our  works. 


II. 

AUTHORITIES  AND  SCRIBES. 

He  taught  them  as  one  having  authority^  and  not  as 
the  scribes.  Matt.  vii.  29. 

'THHERE  are  still,  and  always,  these  two  kinds 
of  teaching,  —  the  teaching  of  authority  and 
the  teaching  of  scribes.  We  all  have  felt  the  dif- 
ference without  perhaps  defining  it  to  ourselves. 
Some  men  speak  to  us  with  authority  by  word  of 
mouth  or  by  books ;  others,  with  equal  or  even 
greater  attainments,  and  so  far  as  we  can  judge, 
with  equal  purity  of  purpose,  want  that  authority 
as  speakers  or  as  writers.    Whence  this  difference  ? 

What  constitutes  authority  in  a  teacher  ?  The 
answer  is.  Competent  testimony,  original  observa- 
tion by  a  qualified  witness. 

In  secular  science  the  majority  are  dependent  on 
the  testimony  of  experts,  not  having  the  means  of 
verifying  the  facts  for  themselves.  The  ship-mas- 
ter at  sea  ascertains  his  longitude  by  the  aid  of  cer- 
tain tables  in  his  nautical  almanac.     These  tables 


22  AUTHORITIES  AND  SCRIBES. 

are  based  on  astronomical  calculations,  and  embody 
the  results  of  those  calculations  for  years  to  come. 
It  is  not  necessary  that  the  ship-master  be  an  astro- 
nomer ;  it  needs  only  that  he  have  the  testimony  of 
competent  witnesses  in  that  science.  He  receives 
their  testimony  as  authority,  and  relying  on  that 
authority  traverses  the  pathless  ocean  without  other 
way-mark,  and  can  tell  at  any  moment  how  far  the 
forces  that  impel  his  vessel  have  borne  him  east  or 
west.  Relying  on  that  authority,  I  believe  the  sun 
to  be  ninety -five  millions  of  miles  from  the  earth, 
and  I  expect  an  eclipse  of  that  body  at  the  mo- 
ment indicated  in  my  almanac. 

But  what  constitutes  authority  in  religion  ?  Who 
is  the  qualified  witness  of  moral  and  spiritual  trutli  ? 
Here  is  a  kind  of  knowledge  accessible  to  all.  "  The 
word  is  nigh  thee,  in  thy  mouth  and  in  thy  heart." 
Yet  here  too,  as  well  as  in  questions  of  science,  we 
feel  and  acknowledge  the  weight  of  authority.  We 
listen  to  one  teacher,  and,  though  what  he  says  is 
undeniably  true,  and  his  manner  of  saying  it  unex- 
ceptionable, he  makes  no  impression ;  we  do  not 
dispute  his  statement,  but  we  are  not  persuaded  by 
it.  It  provokes  no  dissent,  and  it  carries  no  con- 
viction. He  teaches  as  the  scribes.  We  listen  to 
another  who  says  substantially  the  same  thing, 
and  immediately  a  new  world  is  open  to  our  per- 
ception, a  new  day  shed  abroad  in  our  minds.     It 


AUTHORITIES  AND  SCRIBES.  23 

is  nothing  new  that  he  propounds,  but  it  comes  to 
us  with  the  force  of  a  new  revelation.  Before  it 
was  a  truism,  now  it  is  a  truth. 

What  Jesus  said  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount 
—  that  which  made  his  hearers  astonished  at  his 
doctrine  —  was  not  new;  the  scribes  had  said  sub- 
stantially the  same ;  but  the  spirit  with  which  it 
was  said  was  new,  and  that  new  spirit  made  the 
Christian  evangel  a  new  creation,  so  that  history 
dates  from  that  teacher's  word. 

In  the  multitude,  which  no  man  can  number,  of 
teachers  who  have  spoken  from  age  to  age  on  the 
same  eternal  themes,  —  the  being  of  God  and  the 
destination  of  man,  —  there  has  been  but  here  and 
there  one  whose  word  was  a  power  in  the  world, 
here  and  there  an  authority  in  a  world  of  scribes. 
The  recorded  words  of  Jesus  and  of  Paul  take  very 
little  room,  and  may  be  read  in  a  couple  of  hours ; 
but  the  writings  to  which  they  have  given  rise  in 
the  way  of  comment  and  controversy  and  discourse, 
if  preserved  from  the  beginning  and  collected  to- 
gether, no  man  could  read  in  a  lifetime.  The 
greater  part  of  these  have  perished,  and  the  rest 
will  follow.  Not  a  hundred  volumes,  not  fifty,  of 
those  so-called  Bodies  of  Divinity  whicli  cumber 
the  shelves  of  old  libraries,  will  maintain  a  per- 
manent place  in  the  literature  of  religion ;  while 
the  little  volume  which  has  fui'nishcd  the  topic  of 


24  AUTHORITIES  AND   SCRIBES. 

SO  much  discoursing  is  likely  to  endure,  and  be 
read  and  received  as  authority  until  some  new 
convulsion  of  the  globe  shall  sweep  every  vestige 
of  existing  civilization  from  the  face  of  the  earth. 
This  is  Humanity's  verdict  on  the  relative  value  of 
these  two  classes  of  teachers,  —  the  authorities  and 
the  scribes. 

Authority  is  adequate  testimony,  the  word  of  a 
competent  witness.  We  call  it  revelation.  And 
what  is  revelation  ?  Let  us  free  our  minds  from 
a  certain  confusion  which  seems  to  mystify  this 
term.  Revelation  is  not  a  voice  from  without,  but  a 
voice  within ;  not  a  prodigious  communication  out 
of  the  skies,  a  doctrine  appended  to  the  tail  of  some 
portent,  but  the  intuition  of  a  rapt  soul  that  has 
met  the  Spirit  of  God  in  its  meditation.  The 
teacher  with  authority  in  religion  is  the  qualified 
witness,  he  who  has  had  direct  intuition  of  the  truth 
he  affirms.  The  scribes  but  restate  the  testimony 
of  others ;  they  add  nothing  to  the  truth,  they 
ratlier  weaken  it  by  repetition  and  inadequate 
statement.  He  only  speaks  with  authority  who 
tells  what  he  has  seen  with  his  own  independent 
vision,  the  truth  he  has  reproduced  in  his  own 
mind,  the  truth  which  flesh  and  blood  have  not 
revealed,  but  the  living  God.  The  truth  thus  ob- 
tained is  not  necessarily  new,  in  the  sense  that  the 
like  had  never  been  said  before ;  but  it  is  new  in 


AUTHORITIES  AND   SCRIBES.  25 

the  sense  of  having  been  new-born  in  the  thought 
of  him  who  declares  it.  That  makes  it  as  fresh  as 
the  morning,  the  ever-new  surprise  of  a  new  day. 

Such  teachers  we  call  "seers,"  signifying  thereby 
that  they  see  what  they  teach.  Of  such  seeing  the 
lirst  and  most  essential  condition  is  unconditional 
surrender  to  the  truth.  With  the  scribe  the  first 
consideration  is  not  what  is  true,  but  what  is  writ- 
ten, vouched,  accredited,  or  else  what  is  profitable, 
what  is  best  fitted  to  build  up  our  denomination,  to 
strengthen  our  church ;  not  what  saith  the  Spirit 
speaking  to  me  this  day,  but  what  says  the  confer- 
ence, what  says  the  platform,  the  covenant,  the 
catechism  ;  what  has  credit  with  the  churches,  what 
is  good  ecclesiastical  stock.  But  they  whom  God 
has  destined  to  be  his  witnesses  —  authorities  not 
for  a  day  or  a  sect,  but  for  all  time  —  listen  to  no 
secondary  teaching.  They  settle  on  no  platform, 
they  stop  at  no  intermediate  stage ;  they  go  straight 
to  the  Fountain,  and  listen  in  their  souls  to  what 
God  shall  declare  to  them  concerning  himself. 
They  believe  that  God  will  speak  to  them  also,  if 
they  really  wish  to  hear ;  that  is,  they  believe  in 
a  present,  living  God,  not  merely  in  the  God  of 
long  ago.  They  deliver  themselves  up  without 
reserve  to  the  truth  ;  they  open  mind  and  heart  to 
God's  teaching,  asking  not  what  is  profitable,  what 
say  the  scribes,  but  what  saith  the  Spirit.   "  Speak, 


26  AUTHORITIES  AND  SCRIBES. 

Lord,  for  thy  servant  heareth,"  is  the  constant 
frame  of  their  waiting  souls. 

No  teacher  acquires  authority  by  his  thought 
alone.  No  mere  philosopher,  however  accepted  in 
his  day,  can  be  permanent  authority  for  the  mass 
of  mankind.  Those  old  Greek  sages,  who  said  so 
many  wise  and  beautiful  things  about  duty  and 
God,  and  were  so  conspicuous  in  their  generation,  — 
Pythagoras,  Socrates,  Plato,  and  the  rest,  —  what 
are  they  now  ?  What  can  they  be  to  the  multitude 
in  every  age  but  a  vague  impression  of  something 
far  off  and  sublime,  beyond  the  appreciation  of 
ordinary  minds,  like  those  dim  stars  in  the  upper 
deep  which  astronomers  tell  us  are  luminous 
worlds,  the  centres  of  unknown  systems,  but  which, 
so  far  as  our  senses  can  discern,  are  only  faint 
specks  requiring  often  artificial  aid  to  make  them 
perceptible. 

What  the  world  requires  in  its  spiritual  leaders 
is  not  intellectual  acuteness,  but  truth  incarnate  in 
the  life.  Such  a  leader,  a  teacher  with  authority, 
the  Christian  world  acknowledges  in  its  Founder. 
It  finds  him  pre-eminent  in  those  respects  in  which 
philosophers  and  philosophy  fail. 

1.  Universality.  Jesus  represents  no  school  or 
epoch  or  race.  He  speaks  a  universal  dialect,  the 
dialect  of  the  heart ;  addressing  liimself  not  to  a 
few  select  and  disciplined  natures,  but  to  universal 


AUTHORITIES  AND  SCRIBES.  27 

man.  "  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor,  and  are 
lieavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  "  Whoso- 
ever drinketh  of  the  water  that  I  shall  give  him, 
shall  never  thirst ;  but  the  water  that  I  shall  give 
him,  shall  be  in  him  a  well  of  water  springing  up 
into  everlasting  life."  "  He  that  believeth  in  me, 
though  he  were  dead,  yet  shall  he  live." 

There  is  no  philosophy  here  ;  but  what  conscious- 
ness, what  authority  !  Wlio  else  ever  uttered  words 
like  these  ?  Translatable  into  every  idiom  and 
losing  little  or  nothing  by  translation,  the  words 
w^hich  were  uttered  so  long  ago  in  the  solitudes  of 
Galilee  or  the  streets  of  Jerusalem  are  household 
words  to-day  in  the  remotest  corners  of  the  globe, 
endeared  by  daily  use  and  consecrated  by  centuries 
of  faith  and  worship,  wholesome  as  daily  bread,  and 
still  revered  as  bread  from  heaven. 

2.  Next,  the  Christian  world  cherishes  in  Christ 
the  element  of  stability.  Other  teachers  arise  and 
vanish  with  the  rolling  years.  The  sure  foot  of 
advancing  time  overtakes  them,  supplants  them. 
New  systems  are  demanded  by  new  generations. 
The  oracles  of  one  age  are  dumb  to  the  next.  The 
voyager  soon  misses  the  familiar  coast-lights  that 
light  him  along  his  native  shore.  A  few  hours' 
sail  withdraws  their  friendly  blaze.  But  Sirius  and 
Orion  accompany  him  through  all  the  meridians. 
Such  arc  the  lights  of  philosophic  speculation,  and 


28         '     AUTHORITIES  AND  SCRIBES. 

such  the  eternal  truths  of  the  Spirit  to  the  journey- 
ing soul  in  its  life-long  voyage.  The  guides  which 
seemed  so  infallible  once  have  ceased  to  be  in- 
fallible now,  have  ceased  to  edify.  We  have 
shifted  our  point  of  sight,  and  what  was  once  a  star 
has  become  the  solitary  candle  of  some  plodding 
student  no  wiser  than  ourselves.  We  liave  as- 
cended into  new  regions,  and  what  seemed  to  be 
celestial  radiance  as  we  looked  up  to  it  from  be- 
neath, is  meteor  and  mist  as  we  look  down  upon 
it  from  above.  We  come  to  doubt  at  last  whether 
any  thought  of  philosopher  or  sage  will  continue  to 
feed  us,  whether  any  light  in  literature  will  con- 
tinue to  light  us  to  the  end.  It  is  sad  to  lose  our 
faith  in  teachers,  but  that  is  the  price  we  pay  for 
our  growth.  One  by  one  we  outgrow  our  idols,  we 
come  up  with  them  and  pass  on.  They  were  wise 
in  their  generation  ;  but  the  soul  is  wiser  than  all 
generations,  and  the  Word  from  everlasting  is 
wiser  than  the  soul. 

3.  Furthermore,  the  Christian  world  perceives  in 
Jesus  that  Word  made  flesh.  It  is  not  the  peculi- 
arity of  the  doctrine,  but  the  quality  of  soul  and  the 
quantum  of  life  in  the  Teacher,  that  makes  him 
authority,  and  explains  the  epithet,  "  Son  of  Man." 
There  was  no  new  doctrine  taught  by  Jesus.  The 
Gospel  contains  no  precept  so  peculiar,  no  moral 
so  sublime,  that  the  learned  will  not  find  you  chap- 


AUTHORITIES  AND  SCRIBES.  29 

ter  and  verse  of  some  Eabbi  or  ethnic  philoso- 
pher where  the  same  thing  has  been  said  before. 
The  doctrine  was  not  new,  but  the  life  was,  —  that 
wondrous  life,  so  sharply  relieved  on  the  world's 
history,  yet  so  intimately,  ineradicably  blended  with 
it ;  so  near  the  ground,  yet  so  lifted  above  the 
earth,  in  its  humiliation  drawing  all  men  unto  it; 
so  exalted  above  human  weakness,  yet  so  pro- 
foundly sympathizing  with  it;  so  homely  and  so 
shining,  so  human  and  so  di\dne ! 

Such  was  the  authority  of  that  one  example  that 
succeeding  ages  have  been  steeped  in  its  baptism, 
and  taken  its  name  and  confessed  its  law.  Christen- 
dom with  all  its  attainments,  with  its  forces  still 
growing,  still  unfolding,  —  the  kingdom  as  wide  as 
the  circuit  of  the  sun,  —  is  the  growth  of  that  life. 
The  history  of  Jesus  is  the  history  of  one  who  sur- 
rendered himself  entirely  to  the  Truth.  He  gave 
himself  without  measure  to  the  Spirit,  and  therefore 
without  measure  the  Spirit  was  given  to  him.  And 
because  in  him  no  care  of  self,  and  no  infirmity  of 
prejudice,  and  no  bias  of  time  or  custom  or  institu- 
tion, and  no  view  to  present  effect,  and  no  fear  of 
consequences,  and  no  mere  curiosity  of  the  intellect, 
no  conceit  or  fancy  such  as  in  other  men  wise  and 
good,  as  in  Plato  and  Swedenborg,  mars  the  recep- 
tivity of  the  soul,  —  because  in  him  nothing  of  this 
sort,  no  slightest  barrier  of  privacy,  hindered  the 


30  AUTHORITIES  AND  SCRIBES. 

influx  of  the  Spirit, — because  the  Godhead  found 
in  him  a  wholly  permeable,  translucent  subject,  — 
therefore  he  was  absorbed  in  God,  and  God  imper- 
sonated in  him,  so  that  he  and  the  Father  were  one; 
and  virtue  and  divinity  went  out  of  him  when  he 
acted  and  spoke,  and  his  action  was  miracle  and 
his  word  revelation,  and  act  and  word  have  sacra- 
mented  succeeding  ages,  and  the  piety  unfathomable 
of  that  one  life  still  floats  the  world. 

On  a  lower  plane,  in  a  lesser  degree,  other  spirits 
in  diverse  times  have  impersonated  some  truth  or 
doctrine,  have  identified  themselves  with  it,  so  that 
it  has  come  to  be  the  meaning  and  idea  of  their  life. 
So  Paul  inclined  his  ear  to  the  Spirit,  and  heard  God 
say  to  him  that  the  ceremonial  law  of  Judaism  had 
been  fulfilled  and  superseded  in  Christ.  Accord- 
ingly the  life  of  Paul  means  deliverance  from  ritual 
bondage.  In  a  later  age  Luther,  meditating  the 
errors  and  corruptions  and  spiritual  wants  of  his 
time,  received  in  himself  the  assurance  that  pen- 
ances and  pilgrimages  and  fasts  have  no  saving 
power ;  and  the  life  of  Luther  means  salvation  by 
faith.  The  life  of  George  Fox  means  the  gift  of  the 
Spirit  to  all  who  believe.  The  life  of  Swedenborg 
means  the  correspondence  of  natural  objects  with 
spiritual  truths.  The  life  of  Channing  represents 
the  dignity  and  sacredness  of  human  nature. 

On  the  whole,  we  may  say  that  truth  is  the  only 


AUTHORITIES  AND  SCRIBES.  31 

authority.  He  only  speaks  with  authority  who  has 
that,  and  has  it  at  first  hand,  who  shows  me  the 
truth  I  had  never  seen  before,  or  who  makes  me 
see  it  as  I  had  never  seen  it  before.  And  truth 
once  seen  may  be  safely  left  to  its  own  operation.  It 
needs  no  rhetoric  to  set  it  off ;  it  needs  no  enforce- 
ment to  giA^e  it  effect.  When  the  geometrician  has 
demonstrated  his  proposition  that  the  angles  of  a 
triangle  are  equal  to  two  right  angles,  he  does  not 
proceed  to  enforce  it  by  appeals  to  sentiment  and 
passion,  he  uses  no  rhetoric  to  set  it  off.  What 
should  we  think  of  the  geometrician  who  should 
conclude  his  demonstration  by  addressing  our  sym- 
pathies, and  earnestly  adjuring  us  by  every  motive 
of  interest,  of  self-respect,  of  good-will  to  mankind, 
to  admit  that  things  are  as  they  are.  His  only  argu- 
ment is  the  fact  which  he  proves.  Why  may  not 
moral  truth  in  like  manner  be  left  to  itself  ?  What 
can  be  so  powerful  as  just  itself  ?  All  that  we  can 
do  for  it  is  to  make  it  appear.  "  Show  us "  the 
Truth,  "  and  it  sufficeth." 

But  let  us  understand  that  truth  is  progressive,  — 
I  mean,  truth  in  religion.  The  truths  of  geometry, 
which  express  the  immutable  relations  of  space, 
are  unchangeable.  A  proposition  in  mathematics 
which  was  true  six  thousand  years  ago  is  just  as  true 
now,  and  will  be  six  thousand  years  hence.  The  re- 
lations of  angles  and  curves  are  tlie  same  from  age 


32  AUTHORITIES  AND  SCRIBES. 

to  age.  But  the  relations  of  spirit  change.  The 
world  of  spirit  advances,  and  as  it  advances  brings 
new  points  of  view ;  and  with  new  points  of  view  come 
new  views  of  the  same  objects,  differing  from  the 
old,  yet  equally  true,  —  I  should  say,  more  true  than 
the  old  are  now.  The  objects  are  the  same,  but  are 
differently  seen,  as  the  same  fixed  star  has  a  differ- 
ent relative  position  as  the  earth  advances  in  its 
annual  course.  Propositions  in  theology  need  to 
be  reconsidered  from  time  to  time  ;  the  creed  which 
was  true  for  the  ninth  century  is  not  true  for  the 
nineteenth,  and  many  who  spoke  with  authority 
then  have  ceased  to  be  authority  now.  And  yet 
the  genuine  teacher,  speaking  not  from  the  plane 
of  current  beliefs,  but  out  of  the  fulness  of  the 
Spirit,  speaks  with  authority  to  all  time.  There 
are  voices  which  never  can  become  mute.  There 
are  forces  over  which  time  has  no  power ;  for  time 
did  not  make  them,  but  they  time.  Existing 
forms,  organizations,  creeds  may  become  obsolete. 
Once  they  were  new ;  now  they  are  old.  But  the 
Spirit  which  gave  them  birth,  though  older  than 
the  oldest  as  measured  by  the  scale  of  earthly 
years,  is  newer  than  the  newest,  and  can  never  be 
outgrown.  It  was  in  the  world  before  it  took  the 
Christian  name,  and  will  never  be  out  of  it  what- 
ever name  it  may  take.  Christian  it  will  always  be 
in  the  true  and  eternal  import  of  that  name.     For 


AUTHORITIES  AND  SCRIBES.  33 

the  ever-living  Spirit,  and  not  an  historic  individual, 
is  the  true  Christ, — the  same  yesterday,  to-day,  and 
forever.  Systems  pass,  theologies  slide,  and  au- 
thorities whose  sphere  and  function  were  merely 
dogmatic,  the  authorities  of  the  schools,  are  author- 
ities no  longer.  But  goodness  is  the  same  in  all 
generations.  The  authority  of  a  good  life  can 
never  become  obsolete,  can  never  fail  to  teach  with 
effect.  Let  us  not  think  so  poorly  of  the  business 
of  teaching  as  to  fancy  it  confined  to  word  of  mouth 
or  the  written  page,  or  deem  that  they  only  in- 
struct and  admonish  and  persuade  who  speak  with 
words  of  wisdom  and  rhetorical  art. 

If  we  trace  the  influences  which  have  acted  most 
powerfully  on  our  moral  nature,  we  shall  find  that 
it  is  not  the  teachers  by  profession  that  have  done 
the  most  and  the  best  to  shape  our  life,  but  the 
characters  we  conversed  with,  the  daily  life  and 
conversation  of  our  fellow-men.  And  the  best 
influences  and  instruction  have  come  from  those 
beneath  us,  quite  as  often  as  from  those  above  us 
in  culture  and  understanding  and  the  social  scale. 
The  most  diligent  student  of  us  all  will  confess,  I 
think,  that  he  has  learned  more  from  life  than  from 
books, — from  public  and  private  examples  of  use- 
fulness and  worth.  The  conscientious  and  labori- 
ous father  of  a  family,  the  patient,  self-sacrificing 
wife  and  mother,  the  devoted  child,  the  faithful  and 

3 


34  AUTHORITIES  AND  SCRIBES, 

painstaking  servant  in  our  employ,  —  these  are 
our  teachers,  better  than  all  homilies,  more  con- 
vincing than  any  treatise.  Authorities  they  are, 
unquestionable  and  commanding.  Xot  quotable  in 
literature,  inasmuch  as  teaching  by  word  was  not 
their  function,  but  authority  such  as  the  soul  that 
considers  them  cannot  choose  but  accept.  I  con- 
fess the  majesty  of  unconscious  goodness  in  some 
obscure  individual  has  more  impressed  me  than 
any  page  of  Jeremy  Taylor  or  Saint  Augustine. 
Compared  with  this  silent  authority,  my  favorite 
teachers  were  but  scribes.  And  I  sometimes  think 
what  a  different  standard  of  authority  and  dignity 
the  angels  may  have  from  that  received  among 
men.  You  remember  whom  Jesus  pronounced 
authorities  on  three  separate  occasions,  —  in  the 
matter  of  practical  well-doing,  the  unknown  citizen 
of  a  country  held  in  abhorrence  and  contempt ;  in 
the  matter  of  liberality,  a  poverty-stricken  widow ; 
in  the  matter  of  spiritual  greatness,  a  little  child. 

It  is  truth  alone  that  teaches  with  authority, 
whether  bodied  in  words  or  deeds.  Be  obedient  to 
the  truth  which  you  see  and  know ;  live  that  truth, 
be  that  truth,  and  you  will  be,  so  far  as  that  truth 
is  concerned,  authority  to  all  who  come  within  your 
sphere.  Without  word-wisdom  or  excellency  of 
speech,  you  will  preach  more  impressively  than 
sermon  or  book. 


III. 

THE   LESSOK   OF   ELOWEES. 

Consider  the  lilies  of  the  field,  how  they  groiv ;  they 
toil  not^  neither  do  they  spin :  and  yet  I  say  unto  you 
that  even  Solomon  in  all  his  glory  was  not  arrayed  like 
one  of  these.  Matt.  vi.  28. 

TF  the  Bible  were  struck  out  of  existence  to-mor- 
row  and  not  a  copy  of  it  left  to  any  library 
or  any  household,  there  are  sayings  of  Jesus  which 
would  long  survive  in  the  memory  of  Christendom ; 
and  this  is  one  of  them.  No  saying  is  more  likely 
to  survive  than  this  which  speaks  to  the  heart  with 
such  a  winsome  grace  ;  it  brings  the  great  Teacher 
so  near,  so  domesticates  him  in  the  natural  world 
of  our  experience,  —  the  out-door  world  which  the 
spring  is  now  transfiguring  with  a  new  dispensa- 
tion of  rejoicing  life. 

How  touching  this  benediction  of  natural  beauty 
from  the  Son  of  Man,  —  the  Spirit's  tribute  to 
Nature,  his  great  ally  !  For  who  so  in  league  with 
Nature  as  Jesus  ?  Who  ever  owed  less  to  books 
and  the  past  ?     He  used  these  only  to  prove  to 


36  THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS, 

those  who  assailed  him  with  their  traditions  how 
they  missed  the  spirit  of  the  Scripture  in  their 
worship  of  the  letter.  With  simple  and  unpreju- 
diced hearers  he  reasoned  always  from  actual  life 
as  it  passed  before  his  eyes.  His  scriptures  were 
birds  and  flowers,  earth  and  sky,  men,  women,  and 
children,  objects  and  interests  new  as  the  dawn, 
and  older  than  all  the  traditions  of  the  world.  He 
spoke  as  a  living  man  to  living  men,  with  no  school 
doctrine,  but  in  lessons  gleaned  by  a  fresh,  clear 
eye,  which  made  the  world  seem  fresh  about  him,  as 
if  he  were  the  first  that  had  appeared  in  its  scenes. 
When  the  people  looked  for  dogmas,  he  gave  tliem 
things ;  when  they  looked  for  forms,  he  gave  them 
spirit ;  instead  of  the  past,  he  drew  from  the  pres- 
ent. The  first  object  that  met  his  eye,  the  fact  of 
the  moment,  was  his  theme.  All  Nature  was  trans- 
lated into  parable  for  their  instruction.  Whatever 
he  handled  became,  by  the  mark  which  he  put  upon 
it,  a  new  creation.  His  hearers  could  not  analyze 
the  charm  of  his  teaching ;  they  knew  not  the  se- 
cret of  his  power.  The  only  account  they  could 
give  of  it,  comparing  him  with  other  teachers,  was 
that  "  he  taught  them  as  one  having  authority,  and 
not  as  the  scribes."  What  scribe  or  doctor  of  the 
Law  would  have  deigned  to  discourse  of  lilies,  un- 
less it  were  the  carved  ones  of  the  Temple  col- 
umns ?     The  scribes  and  doctors  were  too  intent 


THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS.  37 

on  their  phylacteries  to  think  of  flowers,  or  to  find 
any  comfort  in  their  immunities  and  splendors. 
They  could  talk  of  the  glory  of  Solomon  far  away 
in  the  past,  for  that  was  in  their  books,  —  a  part 
of  the  national  tradition ;  but  the  glory  all  around 
them,  the  glory  of  the  flowers  of  the  field,  had  no 
meaning  or  charm  for  them.  One  jot  or  tittle  of 
the  Law  was  more  to  them  than  all  the  beauty  of 
earth  and  sky. 

The  Hebrew  people  have  been  charged  with  a 
want  of  appreciation  of  the  beautiful  in  Nature, 
in  which  it  is  said  they  differ  from  the  Greeks. 
The  difference,  I  suspect,  is  not  so  great  as  has 
been  represented.  The  fact  is,  none  of  the  an- 
cient nations  had  that  feeling  for  Nature  so  char- 
acteristic of  the  modern  mind,  —  the  feeling  which 
breathes  from  the  canvas  of  Turner  and  the  strains 
of  such  poets  as  Wordsworth  and  our  own  Bryant. 
This  feelino'  is  essentially  modern,  Christian ;  due 
in  great  part  to  the  Christian  sense  of  the  imme- 
diate presence  of  God  in  Nature.  It  is  true,  how- 
ever, that  the  Hebrew  mind  had  apparently  less 
sympathy  with  the  beautiful  in  Nature  than  with 
the  awful  and  sublime.  Rugged  cliffs  and  craggy 
mountain-peaks  seem  to  have  best  suited  those 
stern  spirits,  with  their  abrupt  monotheism.  With 
the  exception  of  some  passages  in  the  Psalms  and 
the   Canticles,  there   is   no  expression   of   delight 


38  THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS. 

in  natural  beauty  in  their  scriptures.  The  more 
remarkable  and  all  the  more  welcome  is  this  ex- 
pression from  the  lips  of  Jesus,  the  consummate 
flower  of  the  Hebrew  race,  —  proof  of  the  more 
than  Hebrew  spirit  that  dwelt  in  him,  of  the  mind 
transcending  all  nationality,  comprehending  the 
sympathies  of  universal  man,  and  illustrating  the 
fitness  of  the  title  "  Son  of  Man." 

Consider  the  lilies,  how  they  grow !  The  lilies 
had  been  there  from  the  days  of  the  conquest,  but 
where  the  heart  to  feel  and  the  mind  to  interpret 
their  beauty  ?  Year  after  year  they  liad  come  in 
their  season  and  starred  the  fields  with  their  briglit 
array,  but  who  had  thought  them  worth  consider- 
ing ?  Kings  and  chiefs  returning  from  slaughter 
had  stalked  remorseless  through  their  ranks,  war's 
unheeding  foot  had  trod  upon  their  cups,  priest 
and  Levite  had  passed  them  by,  and  none  ever  pon- 
dered how  they  grow,  or  paused  to  study  their 
hidden  moral.  But  when  Jesus  came  he  exalted 
the  neglected  wild-flower,  and  set  it  above  the 
splendor  of  courts. 

"  And  in  the  bosom  of  its  purity, 
A  voice  he  set  as  in  a  temple  shrine, 
That  life's  quick  travellers  ne'er  might  pass  it  by 
Unwarned  of  that  sweet  influence  divine." 

The  flowers  which  Jesus  praised,  —  not  lilies,  as 
we   understand   that   term,  but  a  gorgeous   wild- 


THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS.  39 

flower  which  still  enamels  the  plains  of  Palestine, 
—  the  flowers  which  Jesus  praised  are  not  native 
to  our  clime ,  but  the  same  Nature  from  which  the 
great  Teacher  drew  is  present  here  and  lovely 
here,  if  not  so  luxuriant  as  seen  under  Syrian 
skies ;  the  flowers  which  gladden  our  own  fields, 
if  not  so  gay,  are  as  dainty  and  as  full  of  signifi- 
cance as  those  of  Palestine.  And  now  that  we  are 
once  more  comforted  and  blessed  with  these  yearly 
visitants,  now  that  spring-blossoms  glorify  the 
landscape  once  more,  I  am  moved  in  the  spirit  of 
this  Scripture  to  draw  from  Nature  for  our  in- 
struction, and  to  follow  the  Master  in  a  lesson 
of  flowers. 

Consider  the  lilies,  how  they  grow !  Consider 
first  their  essential  beauty,  the  delicate  texture  of 
their  silken  petals,  their  varied  forms  of  grace,  the 
tender  promise  of  the  folded  bud,  the  faultless 
rhythm  of  the  full-blown  flower,  the  splendor  of 
their  tints,  and  the  grateful  incense  of  their  balmy 
breath.  Beautiful  they  are;  but  why  are  they, 
and  what  is  their  use  ?  The  answer  is,  Beauty. 
Beauty  is  for  us  all  their  being's  end.  Their  only 
or  chief  function,  so  far  as  man  is  concerned,  is 
to  please  the  eye,  and  through  the  eye  to  refresh 
and  make  glad  the  heart.  Here  is  a  lesson  for 
the  Christian  moralist ;  here  is  a  revelation  of  the 
mind  of  God.     Beauty  is  use,  and  an  end  in  itself. 


40  THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS. 

Beauty  is  divine.  This  is  a  truth  which  theology 
has  yet  to  learn  and  apply.  Something  of  the 
Hebrew  sternness  and  alleged  indifference  to  nat- 
ural beauty  has  passed  into  Christian  theology. 
The  saints  of  the  Church  have  looked  on  beauty 
as  idle  vanity  or  carnal  satisfaction.  The  early 
painters  rejected  it  from  their  portraits.  The 
Fathers  of  the  desert  ruled  it  out  of  their  scheme 
of  life.  The  less  of  beauty,  they  thought,  the 
more  of  holiness,  the  more  of  spirit.  The  English 
hermit  in  his  island  fastness  walled  up  the  win- 
dow of  his  hermitage,  shutting  out  the  magnificent 
prospect  which  disturbed,  he  said,  his  communion 
with  God,  —  as  if  God  were  less  present  in  liis  own 
creation  than  within  the  walls  of  a  cell.  The  Jes- 
uits of  Granada  boasted  of  their  father  Sanchez, 
that  though  the  monastery  in  which  he  lived  had 
a  beautiful  garden,  he  never  looked  at  a  single 
flower.  Calvin  in  romantic  Geneva  cherished  his 
doctrine  of  despair,  and  exhibits  no  trace  in  his 
writings  of  any  influence  on  his  heart  of  the  Al- 
pine glories  which  surrounded  him,  no  sign  that 
his  spirit  had  ever  been  soothed  by  the  contem- 
plation of  Lake  Leman,  or  kindled  at  beholding 
the  snow-peaks  blush  and  glow  in  the  rosy  light  of 
sunset.  Christian  theologians  have  written  books 
to  prove  that  Nature  is  blasted  and  corrupt,  a  de- 
formity and  ruin,  accursed  by  God  in  consequence 


THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS.  41 

of  man's  transgression.  I  find  nothing  in  the 
sayings  of  Christ  that  gives  countenance  to  such 
a  doctrine.  Surely  Jesus  knows  nothing  of  a 
blasted  Nature.  Nature  to  him  is  no  ruin,  but 
the  realm  of  order  and  peace  and  blessing,  the 
vestiture  of  spirit,  the  very  presence  of  the  infinite 
Father.  Every  flower  that  blows  refutes  the  impi- 
ous doctrine  of  a  ruined  Nature  with  its  eye  of 
grace.  Every  flower  bears  witness  of  law  and 
order  and  loving  obedience. 

The  first  lesson  taught  by  flowers  is  the  sacred 
significance  of  beauty,  —  the  place  which  beauty 
occupies  in  the  scheme  of  things.  They  teach  that 
"  beauty  is  its  own  excuse  for  being,"  that  the 
world  is  not  a  system  of  bare  necessities  and  dry 
utilities,  that  man  is  not  to  live  by  bread  alone. 
What  would  the  world  be  if  all  the  flowers  were 
out  of  it,  if  all  the  graces  and  charms  of  life  were 
expunged  ?  Civilization  is  based  on  the  love  of 
beauty  more  than  on  the  grosser  satisfactions  of 
life.  The  savage  has  meat,  clothes,  fire,  under 
normal  conditions  enough  to  eat  and  drink,  a  shel- 
ter from  the  cold,  a  place  to  lay  his  head,  and  all 
the  grosser  satisfactions  of  life.  What  has  the 
cultured  prosperous  citizen  that  the  child  of  the 
forest  has  not  ?  First  and  chiefly,  beauty.  Animal 
satisfaction  is  common  to  both  ;  the  accompanying 
grace  is  peculiar  to  the  former.     Instead  of  the 


42  THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS. 

rude  wigwam,  the  tapestried  drawing-room;  in- 
stead of  food  snatched  from  the  hearth  where  it 
is  cooked,  the  service  of  the  table ;  instead  of  the 
shaggy  hide  and  unkempt  locks,  the  decent  robe 
and  the  comely,  trim  array.  These  principally 
distinp^uish  the  civilized  man  from  4h^  savao^e. 
To  brute  necessity  civilization  adds  grace.  The 
greater  part  of  the  callings  and  business  of  society 
relates  to  the  maintenance  and  perfection  of  this 
grace.  The  sense  of  beauty  is  the  mainspring  of 
civilization.  Take  away  this  and  you  abolish  the 
difference  between  the  troglodyte  and  the  gentle- 
man. God  implanted  the  sense  of  beauty  in  us  to 
be  our  educator  and  civilizer.  Through  the  sense 
of  beauty  he  says  to  us  perpetually,  "  Come  up 
higher!  "  And  he  feeds  that  sentiment  by  his  own 
benign  action  with  all  that  is  beautiful  in  his  crea- 
tions, and  most  of  all  with  flowers.  In  them  we 
have  a  subtle  proof  of  divine  beneficence.  They 
express  the  riches  of  that  Love  which  provides  for 
the  fancy  as  well  as  the  flesh,  and  while  nourish- 
ing the  body  with  necessary  food  entertains  the 
mind  with  ethereal  bread.  A  love  less  tender 
■^ould  have  given  the  needful  fruits  without  the 
superfluous  flowers.  These  are  the  finer  expres- 
sions of  the  Infinite  good- will,  the  dearer  tokens  of 
the  Father's  love. 

But  this  is  not  all  that  their   beauty  teaches. 


THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS.  43 

That  is  a  partial  and  narrow  view  of  creation 
which  considers  it  as  destined  only  for  the  use  of 
man,  and  all  the  wondrous  and  beautiful  things  in 
it  as  ministering  only  to  human  enjoyment.  Are 
there  then  no  flowers  but  those  which  mortals  see  ? 
Did  the  earth  first  take  her  robe  of  beauty  to  grat- 
ify her  human  offspring  ?  Was  there  no  Eden  till 
man  was  placed  in  it,  and  none  after  man  was 
expelled  ?  Were  the  prairies  of  Illinois  naked 
loam  till  the  children  of  the  new  world  looked 
on  their  vast  expanse  ?  Had  Massachusetts  no 
mayflowers  till  the  Pilgrims  landed  ?  Did  the 
peerless  Victoria,  resting  her  broad  leaves  on  the 
Amazon,  delay  to  blossom  till  Humboldt  and 
Schomburgk  were  there  to  see  ?  Doubtless  there 
were  flowers  before  the  birth  of  man.  Doubtless 
the  Creator  has  his  own  delight  in  these  creatures, 
and  has  planted  them  far  from  mortal  ken,  in 
mountain  rifts  and  inaccessible  rock  clefts  where 
only  the  chamois  and  eagle  see,  on  desert  islands 
and  in  secret  nooks  where  no  eye  but  his  can  re- 
joice in  their  beauty,  and  would  have  planted  them 
none  the  less  if  the  human  race  had  never  been 
called  into  being,  if  Adam  and  all  his  progeny  had 
been  omitted  from  the  scheme  of  things.  They 
are  his  fancy,  his  sport,  the  exuberance  and  frolic 
of  the  spirit.  Tliey  express  the  deep  joy  of  God  in 
his  creative  energy.     Man,  never  sufficient  to  him- 


44  THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS. 

self,  vain  man  requires  the  stimulus  of  recognition 
and  admiring  response.  He  will  not  do  his  best 
unless  he  can  count  upon  witnesses,  eye-witnesses 
or  ear-witnesses,  present  or  to  come.  Imagine  even 
Shakspeare  composing  a  drama  that  was  never  to 
be  acted  or  read,  or  Handel  a  chorus  that  was 
never  to  be  sung.  But  Nature  craves  no  admirers, 
solicits  no  witnesses,  and  works  as  cheerily  and  as 
wondrously  in  the  heart  of  the  wilderness  as  in 
public  haunts.  She  even  multiplies  her  choicest 
products  in  secret  dells  and  pathless  wilds,  surpris- 
ing the  chance  wanderer  with  unexpected  marvels 
of  beauty,  but  not  caring  that  any  wanderer  should 
find  her  out.  An  admonition  to  man,  that  of 
human  products  also,  the  choicest  and  fairest  are 
the  fruit  of  retirement.  The  best  that  life  yields, 
the  dearest  blessings,  flourish  in  private.  They  are 
crushed  in  the  sharp  collision,  or  frittered  away  in 
the  long  attrition  of  public  converse.  The  high- 
ways for  business ;  the  city  and  the  court  for  glory 
and  gain,  for  the  race  of  ambition  and  the  chase  of 
fortune.  But  the  flower  of  contentment  blooms, 
if  at  all,  in  private  gardens,  in  the  bosom  of  home,  in 
the  solitudes  of  the  spirit.  Sought  thus  and  there,  it 
springs  for  all,  and  often  most  luxuriantly  in  scenes 
of  the  poorest  promise.  The  apparent  difference 
in  the  human  condition  is  monstrous ;  the  actual 
difference,  the  difference  in   solid  satisfaction,  is 


THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS.  45 

comparatively  small.  There  are  none  so  ill  pro- 
vided but  life  will  occasionally  yield  them  flowers. 
Wherever  there  is  a  healthy  nature,  wherever  there 
are  innocence  and  kind  affections,  there  are  flowers. 
The  same  all-present  bounty  that  gave  to  the  trop- 
ics the  cactus  and  the  palm,  has  clothed  our 
northern  hillsides  with  the  anemone  and  the  vio- 
let ;  and  the  same  beneficent  law  which  gives  to 
genius  glory  and  fame,  appoints  for  the  meek  and 
lowly  peace. 

Of  flowers  consider,  further,  the  infinite  variety, 
—  a  variety  no  science  can  express  and  no  text- 
books exhaust.  Botany  enumerates  classes  and 
orders  ;  but  the  species  how  diverse,  and  no  two 
individuals  even  of  any  one  species  exactly  alike. 
Consider  this,  ye  pedagogues  and  system-makers, 
and  from  it  learn  how  futile,  how  contrary  to  all 
the  analogies  of  Nature  are  all  your  attempts 
to  make  human  beings  think  and  act  alike.  This 
seems  to  be  the  aim  of  most  of  the  systems  of  edu- 
cation and  of  church  polity  which  have  been  pro- 
pounded and  gained  acceptance  in  the  world,  —  to 
make  men  think  and  act  alike.  Such  systems 
mistake  the  true  method  of  growth  and  the  end  of 
life.  The  method  of  growth  is  not  the  same  for  all ; 
and  the  end,  which  in  one  sense  is  the  same  for 
all,  —  that  is,  the  unfolding  of  each  one's  better 
nature  and  progress  in  all  good,  —  is   not  to   be 


46  THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS. 

accomplished  in  the  same  way  by  all.  If  vegetable 
nature  without  the  power  of  self-determination  ex- 
hibits such  diversity,  what  ought  to  be  expected  of 
human  nature  with  that  additional  element !  The 
truth  is,  there  are  needed  as  many  systems  of  edu- 
cation as  there  are  beings  to  be  educated  ;  and 
God,  the  supreme  educator,  pursues  a  different 
system  with  each.  Preposterous  the  demand  that 
every  individual  shall  be  a  reproduction  of  some 
approved  model,  though  it  were  the  highest.  As 
well  demand  that  every  flower  shall  be  a  tulip 
or  a  rose.  Had  it  been  the  Creator's  design  that 
human  nature  in  all  should  conform  to  a  given 
model,  the  same  endowments  would  have  happened 
to  all,  and  a  single  pattern  would  have  been  or- 
dained by  which  men  should  mould  in  all  respects 
their  character  and  life.  But  as  no  such  copy  has 
been  set,  —  for  the  highest,  even  Christ,  is  a  model  in 
principle  only,  not  in  detail,  —  as  no  such  copy  has 
been  set,  and  as  no  such  uniform  endowment  ap- 
pears, it  is  evident  that  God  intended  the  same 
variety  in  the  rational  world  which  pervades  the 
irrational ;  he  intended  that  man  should  differ  from 
man  as  one  flower  differs  from  another  in  glory. 
There  are  good  and  evil  qualities,  there  are  true 
and  false  styles,  as  in  Nature  there  are  wholesome 
and  noxious  plants.  The  evil  and  false  must  be 
rooted  out;  but  within  the  limits   of  health   and 


THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS.  47 

truth  there  is  infinite  scope  for  self-determination 
and  individuality.  Each  individual  has  his  own 
proper  type,  and  the  best  development  for  each 
is  that  which  accords  with  his  individuality.  A 
perfect  society  is  not  one  in  which  all  attain  the 
same  growth  and  exhibit  the  same  aspect,  but  one 
in  which,  like  the  flowers  of  the  field,  each  is  devel- 
oped according  to  his  type.  Moreover,  as  each  has 
his  own  individual  nature,  so  in  each  there  is  a 
nature  common  to  all,  —  the  moral  nature,  which 
connects  him  with  the  highest.  This  each  is 
bound  to  unfold  in  his  life  ;  and  as  every  flower 
represents  the  whole  of  Nature  in  miniature,  so 
every  finite  spirit  should  aim  to  represent  the  uni- 
versal Spirit,  to  express  the  divine  idea  of  man,  to 
enact  the  divine-human  in  his  proper  sphere. 

Let  our  contemplation  of  flowers  consider,  lastly, 
the  law  of  their  being,  —  "  how  they  grow."  What 
distinguishes  the  life  of  plants  is  closeness  to  Na- 
ture, expressed  in  tenacity  of  place.  They  have 
their  root  in  the  earth ;  they  are  fixed  to  the  soil, 
and  perish  if  divorced  from  the  sod.  Man  has  a 
larger  scope  in  his  power  of  locomotion  and  choice 
of  place  ;  but  man  too  is  a  child  of  Nature,  and  can 
flourish  only  by  strict  adherence  to  Nature's  hold. 
We  too  are  bound  to  earth.  Spirits  though  we  be, 
we  have  our  root  in  the  clod.  We  are  animated 
earth,  and  though  not  bound  to  a  given  spot  we 


48  THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS. 

are  bound  to  the  parent  mass  by  indissoluble  ties. 
We  can  act  only  by  means  of  the  organism  with 
which  we  are  endowed,  and  that  organism  is  apt 
and  available  only  in  strict  accordance  with  Nature's 
law.  Close  to  Nature  is  the  rule  for  man  as  well 
as  flower.  Just  so  far  as  we  depart  from  Nature 
in  our  methods  and  aims,  we  lose  our  way  and 
miss  our  end. 

I  have  followed  the  leading  of  the  Gospel  and 
the  season  in  attempting  to  interpret  the  lesson  of 
the  flowers.  Some  of  their  aspects  I  have  sought 
to  represent,  but  who  can  translate  into  speech  the 
bloom  of  Nature  or  formulate  in  words  the  glory 
and  savor  of  the  wood  and  the  field  ?  Nature  to 
be  known  must  be  studied  face  to  face.  The  single 
flower  is  of  brief  duration  ;  the  single  blossom  is 
more  transient  still.  The  flowers  that  now  glad 
the  eye  are  not  the  same  with  those  which  breathed 
the  annual  greeting  of  other  years,  reminding  us 
sadly  of  human  flowers,  the  beloved  of  our  heart, 
the  joy  of  our  life,  that  have  perished  from  us  with 
the  autumn  leaf  and  come  not  again.  But  God  is 
faithful :  he  takes  much,  but  he  gives  more ;  and 
Nature  reproduces  herself  continually.  Think  what 
changes  have  passed  over  Palestine  since  these 
words  of  Jesus,  "  Consider  the  lilies,"  were  uttered 
there.  The  Jewish  theocracy  with  its  sumptuous 
ritual  has  gone  out ;  the  Jewish  temple,  the  pride  of 


THE  LESSON  OF  FLOWERS.  49 

Zion,  has  been  levelled  with  the  ground.  Roman 
and  Greek,  Saracen  and  Frank,  have  occupied  in 
turn  the  land  of  sacred  story  "  over  whose  acres 
walked  those  blessed  feet,"  and  planted  their  faiths 
and  altars  there.  Hardly  the  curious  traveller  de- 
tects here  and  there  some  doubtful  trace  of  the  an- 
cient time.  But  the  lilies  of  the  field,  the  same  in 
kind  that  blossomed  in  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount, 
are  there  still,  fresh  and  glorious  as  when  Jesus 
praised  their  shining  raiment ;  and  still  they  preach 
to  thoughtful  minds  the  same  moral  which  Jesus 
drew  from  their  silent  beauty.  Man  and  man's 
doings  appear  and  vanish  ;  momentary  bubbles  on 
tlie  great  world-stream,  —  they  were  and  are  not. 
But  Nature  is  constant,  —  the  ancient  of  days,  still 
young  in  her  age's  lateness  as  in  creation's  prime ; 
still,  in  all  her  varying  phases,  the  same  from  age 
to  age  ;  the  image  of  eternity  ;  the  visible  presence 
of  the  Invisible,  who  in  her  and  through  her  speaks 
to  us  still,  as  spoke  his  beloved  Son,  and  by  all  the 
beauty  and  all  the  marvels  of  his  creation  and  all 
the  graces  and  beatitudes  of  life,  is  seeking  only  and 
always  to  win  us  to  himself. 


IV. 

NOTHING  TO  DKAW  WITH. 

Sir,  thou  hast  nothing  to  draw  with,  and  the  well  is 
deep:  from  whence  then  hast  thou  that  living  water? 

John  iv.  11. 

LIVING  water  meant  one  thing  to  the  woman 
of  Samaria  and  another  thing  to  the  Son  of 
Man.  Such  different  associations  have  different 
minds  with  the  same  objects,  the  same  words. 
What  a  different  thing  is  this  visible  world  to  dif- 
ferent classes  of  its  occupants  !  To  one  it  is  a  series 
of  phenomena  which  come  and  go  like  pictures  in 
a  diorama,  and  mean  nothing  more.  To  another  it 
is  a  round  of  personal  experiences,  important  only 
as  thej  affect  him  pleasantly  or  otherwise.  To  a 
philosopher  like  Newton  it  is  a  chain  of  causes  and 
effects  expressive  of  natural  laws.  To  a  Spiritual- 
ist like  Jacob  Boehme  or  Swedenborg  it  is  a  book 
of  parables,  or  a  manual  of  symbols  and  corre- 
spondences expressive  of  spiritual  truths. 

Day  by  day  the  sun  rises  and  sets.    The  common 
eye  sees  nothing  but  a  shining  ball  pervading  the 


NOTHING   TO  DRAW   WITH.  51 

heavens,  a  convenient  arrangement  for  lighting  and 
warming  our  earthly  day  ;  Laplace  saw  a  world 
on  fire ;  King  David  saw  a  divine  commandment, 
"  enlightening  the  eyes  and  rejoicing  the  heart ; " 
Zoroaster  saw  Divinity  itself  enthroned  in  light. 

Jesus  and  his  companions  were  seated  at  table. 
The  disciples  saw  nothing  but  bread  and  wine ;  the 
Master  saw  the  flesh  and  blood  of  a  new  age. 

And  so  by  the  well  of  Sychar,  where  the  woman 
of  Samaria  can  see  no  living  water  but  the  cooling 
element  that  sparkles  in  her  bucket,  the  Son  of 
Man  is  conscious  of  a  spiritual  element  springing 
up  into  everlasting  life. 

The  scene  at  Sychar  is  daily  renewed.  Life  is 
that  well  where  spiritual  and  worldly  meet  to- 
gether in  a  common  necessity.  To  some  it  is  a 
well  of  temporary  refreshment ;  to  some  of  everlast- 
ing satisfaction.  Some  thirst  for  one  thing,  some 
for  another  ;  but  all  thirst,  —  all  seek  satisfaction 
of  one  or  another  kind.  And  satisfaction  is  neces- 
sary to  all.  So  necessary  is  it  to  the  sustentation 
of  life,  that  the  soul  must  perish  if  that  nutriment 
be  long  withheld.  So  necessary  is  it,  that  the  soul 
creates  it  for  itself  in  the  way  of  hope  when  denied 
it  in  the  way  of  reality.  So  necessary  is  it  that 
when  in  the  lot  of  another  no  satisfactions  are 
visible  to  us  we  are  puzzled  to  know  how  such  a 
one  lives.     He  has  nothing  that  would  nourish  or 


^2  NOTHING    TO  DRAW   WITH, 

comfort  us,  —  nothing  to  draw  with  that  we  can 
see,  —  and  yet  he  is  happy.  Whence  has  he  that 
living  water  ? 

Let  no  man  measure  another's  resources  by  the 
contents  of  his  own  dipper.  When  the  Son  of 
Man  came  weary  and  thirsty,  and  sat  down  in  his 
humility  by  Jacob's  well,  he  seemed  no  doubt  a 
pitiable  object  to  the  woman  of  Samaria  who  came 
thither  to  draw  water.  She  thought  herself  the 
more  fortunate  of  the  two.  "  Sir,  thou  hast  noth- 
ing to  draw  with,  and  the  well  is  deep."  But  a 
little  conversation  undeceived  her ;  she  found  their 
relative  position  reversed.  The  need  was  hers ; 
the  fulness  his. 

Life  is  a  well  where  all  in  various  ways  seek 
comfort  and  delight.  The  satisfaction  we  find  in  it 
will  depend  on  what  we  bring  to  it,  on  the  nature  of 
the  good  we  seek,  on  our  views  and  expectations  of 
life,  on  what  we  draw  with.  He  who  brings  nothing 
but  selfish  appetite  will  find  nothing  else.  He  will 
find  it  an  everlasting  thirsting  again ;  unsatisfied 
desire  will  be  his  lot.  For  when  was  appetite  ever 
satisfied  ?  "  Enough  "  is  a  word  unknown  in  the 
vocabulary  of  desire.  Whatever  the  direction  and 
special  object  of  desire,  if  private  advantage  be  the 
only  end  contemplated,  disappointment  will  be  the 
end  experienced.  The  result  will  be  no  enduring 
satisfaction,  but  increased  thirst. 


NOTHING   TO  DRAW  WITH.  53 

The  lowest  object  wliicli  desire  can  propose  to 
itself  is  pleasure.  Pleasure  is  one  of  the  goods  of 
life,  but  an  incidental  one  ;  it  comes  in  the  train  of 
other  good,  like  the  fragrance  which  attends  a 
wholesome  fruit ;  it  is  not  to  be  had  by  making  it 
a  special  object  of  pursuit,  and  he  who  has  nothing 
to  draw  with  but  love  of  pleasure  will  soon  cease  to 
draw  even  that.  Our  capacity  for  enjoyment  —  I 
mean  sensational  enjoyment  —  is  the  most  limited 
of  all  our  capacities.  It  is  limited  by  the  constitu- 
tion of  our  own  being  on  one  side,  and  the  constitu- 
tion of  external  nature  on  the  other.  We  can  have 
but  so  many  pleasant  sensations  in  a  given  time ; 
so  many  and  no  more  compose  our  daily  bread. 
By  no  art  or  device,  by  no  resources  of  wealth,  by 
no  felicity  of  circumstance,  can  the  number  be  made 
to  exceed  in  any  considerable  degree  what  is  ordi- 
narily experienced  by  healthy  natures,  with  no  ad- 
vantage of  fortune  and  without  seeking.  And 
limited  as  is  our  capacity  in  that  kind,  the  appetite 
for  pleasure  is  oftener  dulled  by  satiety  and  baffled 
by  disgust  than  satisfied  by  an  adequate  amount  of 
realized  enjoyment.  For  this  is  remarkable  in  man, 
that  with  an  appetite  "  like  fire  or  like  the  grave," 
his  susceptibility  of  pleasure  is  dependent  on  two 
or  three  bundles  of  nerves  of  fragile  texture  and 
very  precarious  service,  good  for  so  much  and  no 
more  in  the  healthiest  state,  and  sure  to  give  out 


64  NOTHING   TO  DRAW   WITH. 

if  overworked.  Of  sensual  enjoyment  the  fact  is 
notorious.  Here  the  limits  are  proverbially  close ; 
pleasure  indulged  to  excess  impairs  the  organs 
through  which  pleasure  is  derived.  The  nerves 
are  unstrung,  the  senses  are  jaded,  the  members 
refuse  to  perform  their  function ;  all  relish  de- 
parts out  of  life.  We  read  of  a  royal  voluptuary 
who  offered  a  reward  to  one  who  should  invent  a 
new  sensation.  I  am  not  aware  that  the  prize 
was  ever  claimed.  Many  a  despot  who  figures  in 
history  has  been  reduced  to  this  strait,  —  a  king- 
dom and  nothing  to  draw  w^ith  ;  a  thousand  ser- 
vants at  command  and  no  satisfaction  to  be  had  ; 
lord  of  unlimited  wealth,  and  not  a  drop  to  drink ! 
The  cynic  who  threw  away  the  useless  luxury  of 
a  cup  on  seeing  a  beggar  drink  from  the  hollow 
of  his  hand  had  a  better  command  of  the  well 
of  life  and  richer  draughts  from  its  depths 
than  the  emperor  whose  suppers  impoverished 
nations. 

Life  is  poor  when  used  in  this  way,  —  poor  as  a 
draught  of  selfish  satisfactions.  There  is  no  aim, 
I  say,  which  a  man  can  propose  to  himself  so  im- 
practicable as  the  effort  to  make  existence  an  unin- 
terrupted series  of  enjoyments.  When  we  reflect 
how  many  things  must  concur  to  furnish  a  single 
day  of  unalloyed  pleasure  ;  how  every  string  in  the 
many-stringed   instrument   of    the   human    frame 


NOTHING   TO  DRAW   WITH.  65 

must  be  tuned  to  the  exact  pitch  of  pleasant  sen- 
sation ;  how  the  slightest  irritation  of  a  single  nerve, 
an  aching  tooth,  or  a  mote  in  the  eye  may  convert 
recreation  into  torture  ;  how  all  the  accidents  of 
time  and  place,  the  faces  and  spirits  of  our  compan- 
ions, and  all  the  elements  of  the  circle  in  which  we 
move  must  conspire  to  aid  or  not  to  molest,  —  the 
wonder  is  that  ever  a  day  of  unqualified  enjoyment 
should  fall  to  the  lot  of  man.  "  It  is  in  vain  that 
a  man  says  to  himself, '  Go  to  now,  I  will  prove  thee 
with  mirth/  The  order  of  Nature  has  not  been  con- 
sulted in  that  arrangement,  nor  is  it  considered 
how  small  a  portion  of  our  enjoyment  depends  on 
our  own  wills,  and  how  much  on  the  will  of  God, 
who  often  says, '  Go  to  now,  I  will  prove  thee  with 
plagues  and  sorrows.'  "  *  Nature  consults  the  hap- 
piness of  the  individual  no  further  than  the  hap- 
piness of  the  individual  consists  with  the  good  of 
the  whole.  Regardless  of  individual  wishes,  in- 
exorable and  immutable,  she  pursues  her  appointed 
course,  giving  us  often  clouds  for  sunbeams,  drought 
for  rain,  famine  for  plenty,  and  tumult  for  rest ; 
frustrating  our  wisest  plans,  disappointing  our 
fondest  hopes,  making  us  pine  with  sickness  and 
writhe  with  pain,  taking  from  us  our  dearest, — 
goods  and  friends  and  all  the  promise  and  joy  of 
life,  —  and  hurrying  us   on   to   the  grave  with  a 

*  Sydney  Smith. 


56  NOTHING   TO  DRAW   WITH. 

power  which  no  prayers  can  avert  and  no  wisdom 
stay. 

Life  is  niggard  of  private  and  far-sought  delights. 
The  best  and  surest  satisfactions  are  those  which 
are  common  to  all,  and  which  come  without  seek- 
ing,— the  perennial  feast  of  Nature,  the  golden  sun- 
light, the  balmy  air  of  summer  days,  the  pleasant 
face  of  earth  and  sky,  books  and  friends,  and  the 
sweet  consuetudes  of  daily  life.  These  are  man's 
common,  natural  food;'  and  all  attempts  to  re- 
fine upon  these  or  to  supersede  them  with  more 
exquisite  enjoyments  are  a  search  after  the  impos- 
sible, and  impoverish  at  last,  instead  of  enriching 
our  mortal  estate.  Add  to  all  this  the  secret  self- 
upbraidings  which  even  the  most  frivolous  cannot 
wholly  escape,  —  the  latent  conviction  that  life  is 
not  the  Vanity  Fair  they  have  sought  to  make  it, 
that  life  was  given  for  quite  other  purposes  than 
selfish  gratification,  and  that  he  who  has  nothing 
but  amusement  to  show  for  his  opportunities  has 
lived  in  vain. 

This  is  the  lesson  taught  by  that  melancholy 
book, — most  melancholy  of  all  time,  the  Book  of 
Ecclesiastes.  We  have  there  a  picture,  after  the 
life,  of  the  jaded  and  disappointed  voluptuary.  No 
vulgar  pleasure-seeker,  but  a  thoughtful,  curious, 
critical  voluptuary  is  portrayed.  A  monarch  fur- 
nished  with   the   amplest  resources  of  fortune,  a 


NOTHING   TO  DRAW   WITH.  57 

philosopher  endowed  with  the  largest  gifts  of  mind, 
goes  deliberately  about  to  satisfy  a  craving  appetite, 
and  devotes  all  his  genius  and  all  his  vast  means 
to  discover  the  secret  of  happiness,  "  till  I  might 
see,"  he  says,  "  what  was  that  good  for  the  sons 
of  men."  He  fails,  as  all  before  him  and  all  since 
have  failed,  to  find  the  satisfaction  thus  sought, 
and  records  the  story  of  his  failure  in  the  sad  con- 
fession of  a  wasted  life.  "  Nothing  to  draw  with, 
and  the  well  is  deep,"  is  the  doleful  record  and 
everlasting  moral  of  Ecclesiastes. 

Appetite  has  other  objects  than  the  love  of 
pleasure.  Let  us  view  it  in  its  nobler  manifesta- 
tions ;  for  example,  in  the  love  of  knowledge. 
The  pursuit  of  knowledge  is  certainly  a  worthier 
aim  than  enjoyment,  and  less  likely  to  disappoint 
the  seeker.  But  when  knowledge  is  sought  in  the 
way  of  private  satisfaction,  with  no  motive  but 
curiosity,  with  no  view  to  the  supreme  truth  and 
good,  with  no  lofty  aspiration,  with  no  reference  to 
human  weal,  it  is  but  a  selfish  appetite,  after  all, 
which  prompts  that  pursuit,  more  rational  and  re- 
fined than  the  love  of  pleasure,  but  subject  to  the 
same  law  and  liable  to  the  same  doom.  Like  all 
other  appetites,  it  is  insatiable,  and  though  free 
from  the  weary  satiety  which  follows  sensual  enjoy- 
ment, it  is  equally  incapable  of  supplying  a  perfect 
and  enduring  satisfaction.     It  is  not  living  water, 


58  NOTHING    TO  DRAW    WITH. 

of  which  whosoever  drinketh  shall  thirst  no  more  ; 
on  the  contrary,  it  is  but  a  temporary  satisfaction, 
which  one  may  relish  to-day  and  be  none  the  hap- 
pier for  to-morrow. 

I  do  not  find  that  learned  men  and  philosophers 
have  been  particularly  blessed  above  all  others.  I 
do  not  find  that  with  all  their  discoveries  they  have 
hit  upon  the  secret  of  multiplying  pleasant  sensa- 
tions, or  what  is  more  to  the  purpose,  of  avoiding 
painful  ones.  I  know  of  no  geographer  or  scientific 
traveller  who  has  found  in  either  of  the  five  zones 
that  happy  valley  in  which  he  could  set  up  his  ever- 
lasting rest.  I  know  of  no  astronomer  who  could 
find  a  heaven  for  himself  among  the  heavenly  bodies 
which  he  knew  and  named,  or  secure  the  perihelion 
of  an  uninterrupted  peace.  I  know  of  no  chemist 
out  of  whose  crucible  has  come  the  alkali  that 
would  discharge  the  disfiguring  stains  from  mortal 
life,  of  no  philosopher  who  could  rid  himself  of  his 
own  shadow.  I  do  not  find  that  philosophers  have 
been  more  able  than  other  men  to  escape  the  bur- 
den of  the  common  lot,  or  less  ready  than  other 
men  to  throw  off  the  burden  and  the  grief  by  laying 
violent  hands  on  themselves,  and  putting  an  abrupt 
period  to  their  tale  of  woe.  I  find  here  an  ancient 
sage  anticipating  his  end  because  he  is  old  and 
maimed,  there  a  scholar  deliberately  walking  out  of 
life  because  of  a  humor  in  his  eyes.     The  immortal 


NOTHING   TO  DRAW   WITH.  59 

Newton,  a  great  sufferer  in  his  latter  years,  could 
find  no  comfort  in  those  discoveries  which  had 
been  the  aim  and  glory  of  his  life.  Lagrange  at 
one  period  was  plunged  in  profound  melancholy, 
and  lost  all  relish  for  scientific  pursuits.  D'Alem- 
bert,  who  was  similarly  afflicted,  pronounced  exist- 
ence a  misfortune.  Boyle  was  driven  to  the  verge 
of  suicide  by  religious  doubts.  The  learned  and 
beautiful  Maria  Agnesi,  the  finished  linguist,  the 
profound  mathematician,  the  most  learned  of 
women,  sought  refuge  in  a  convent  from  a  burden 
of  gloom  which  no  science  could  relieve.  Hum- 
boldt gave  vent  to  the  unsuspected  mortifications 
of  daily  life  in  the  acerbities  of  private  correspond- 
ence ;  and  Hugh  Miller  cut  short  with  a  pistol-shot 
the  thread  of  a  life  imbittered  with  vain  attempts 
to  solve  the  problem  of  creation  and  to  reconcile 
geological  strata  with  the  Book  of  Genesis. 

Here,  too,  the  sad  Ecclesiastes  confirms  our  hom- 
ily :  "  And  I  gave  my  heart  to  seek  and  search  out 
by  wisdom  concerning  all  things  that  are  done  un- 
der heaven.  ...  I  have  seen  all  the  works  that  are 
done  under  the  sun  ;  and  behold,  all  is  vanity  and 
vexation  of  spirit.  That  which  is  crooked  cannot 
be  made  straight :  and  that  which  is  wanting  can- 
not be  numbered.  ...  In  much  wisdom  is  much 
grief :  and  he  that  increaseth  knowledge  increaseth 
sorrow." 


60  NOTHING    TO  DRAW  WITH. 

When  moreover  we  reflect  how  little  is  known  in 
comparison  with  the  boundless  unknown,  how  vast 
the  realm  of  inquiry,  how  infinitesimal  the  province 
yet  conquered  by  man  or  conquerable,  and  how 
all  our  discoveries  amount  to  nothing  but  a  little 
prying  and  peeping,  glimpses  through  telescopes 
and  microscopes, — what  the  Apostle  calls  seeing 
through  a  glass  darkly,  —  there  seems  something 
tragic  in  science  itself  quite  aside  from  the  for- 
tunes of  those  who  pursue  it.  The  most  learned 
have  felt  most  profoundly  their  ignorance ;  the 
most  philosophic  their  incompetence.  This  one 
had  only  attained  to  know  that  he  knew  nothing, 
and  that  one  had  only  picked  up  pebbles  on  the 
strand  of  an  unexplored  deep. 

The  seeker  after  knowledge,  no  less  than  the 
pleasure-seeker,  will  often  sit  weary  by  the  well, 
unsatisfied  and  forlorn.  To  science  also  the  well  is 
deep,  and  learning  has  nothing  to  draw  with  equal 
to  craving  Nature's  need. 

And  if  knowledge  will  not  satisfy  the  thirsting 
soul,  still  less  can  that  thirst  be  assuaged  with  fame. 
The  fame  which  most  men  seek  is  the  idlest  wind 
that  blows.  There  is  a  fame,  indeed,  which  savors 
of  eternal  life.  The  desire  for  that  fame,  the  thirst 
for  true  glory  and  immortality,  the  wish  to  live  and 
shine  forever  in  the  firmament  of  elect  souls,  is  a 
rare  and  sublime  passion  which  only  minds  of  the 


NOTHING    TO  DRAW   WITH.  61 

highest  order  are  capable  of  entertaining.     It  is 
found  only  in  connectionwith  extraordinary  powers, 
and  is  itself  an  earnest  of  immortality.    I  speak  not 
of  fame  in  this  sense,  but  of  present  distinction,  of 
popular  applause.     The  ambition  which  contends 
for  such  prizes  is  born  of  vanity,  and  ends  in  vanity 
and  vexation  of  spirit.     This  is  a  thirst  which  is 
never  satisfied,  and  which  has  this  peculiarity  distin- 
guishing it  from  other  passions,  that  its  aim  is  not 
only  selfish,  but  exclusive;  it  not  only  seeks  its  own 
regardless  of  others,  but  it  seeks  what  others  may 
not  share,  and  is  pained  at  others'  success.    Its  own 
successes  lose  all  their  relish  the  moment  another 
has  more.     And  this  is  its  everlasting  penalty, — 
that  when  it  thinks  to  secure  its  prize,  behold,  an- 
other has  more.     If  merit  were  the  gauge  and  con- 
dition of  success,  ambition  would  have  at  least  an 
honorable  career,  if  not  a  worthy  aim.     But  this  is 
a  contest  in  which  the  race  is  not  to  the  swift,  nor 
the   battle  to  the  strong.     Distinction   is   dear  if 
honorably  sought,  and  dearer  still  if  obtained  at 
the  price  of  self-respect,  but  cheap  enough  to  those 
who   have  no  self-respect  to  compromise.      It   is 
easy  to  make  one's  self  a  name,  if  with  ordinary 
powers  a  man  will  cast  aside  all  scruple  of  delicacy 
and  right,  and  strive  for  coarse  effects.     An  uncriti- 
cal public  is  always  ready  with  its  breath  to  fill 
the  sail  that  courts  it,  and  to  crown  with  its  huz- 


62  NOTHING    TO  DRAW   WITH. 

zas  the  hero  of  the  hour.  And  so  the  hero  of  to- 
day is  replaced  by  a  new  hero  to-morrow.  There 
never  was  an  age  when  popular  favor  was  dealt  in 
the  measure  of  desert,  when  the  highest  honor  was 
secure  to  the  highest  excellence,  when  the  faithful 
and  laborious  student,  the  able  statesman,  the  con- 
summate artist,  the  thorough  and  conscientious 
worker  in  whatever  department,  could  be  sure  of 
the  recompense  due  to  superior  merit.  It  is  not 
the  wisest  voice,  but  the  loudest,  —  not  the  thinker, 
scholar,  seer,  but  the  shallow  declaimer,  —  that 
wins  the  public  ear.  It  is  not  the  work  of  genius  or 
profound  learning,  but  the  book  that  aims  at  popu- 
lar effect,  that  brings  the  largest  and  surest  re- 
turns in  public  report.  It  is  not  the  scientific 
physician,  but  the  quack,  whose  cures  are  cele- 
brated. It  is  not  the  learned  civilian  or  devoted 
patriot,  but  the  noisy  demagogue,  whom  the  people 
choose  for  their  representative  and  leader.  Notori- 
ously in  our  American  politics,  it  is  not  the  fittest 
candidate,  but  the  most  available,  whom  parties 
designate  for  the  highest  place  in  the  land. 

But  suppose  the  race  successful,  and  the  prize, 
whatever  it  be,  secured,  what  does  it  profit  in  the 
way  of  conscious  enjoyment  ?  What  amount  of 
solid  satisfaction  is  realized  in  it  ?  No  good  which 
mortals  chase  after  is  so  purely  imaginary  as  this 
"  fancied  life  in  others'  breath." 


NOTHING    TO  DRAW   WITH.  63 

*'  All  that  we  feel  of  it  begins  and  ends 
In  the  small  circle  of  our  foes  and  friends." 

Let  a  man  work  well  for  worthy  ends  and  content 
himself  with  self-respect,  with  conscious  excel- 
lence, with  the  favorable  verdict  of  his  peers,  and 
his  reward  is  sure ;  but  if  he  seek  it  in  public  honor 
and  popular  applause,  he  pursues  a  phantom  and 
embraces  a  shadow. 

So  whether  it  fail  or  whether  it  succeed  in  its 
special  and  immediate  aim,  the  thirst  which  seeks 
satisfaction  in  distinction  and  applause,  like  every 
appetite  that  aims  at  private  satisfaction,  is  a  thirst- 
ing again.  Whatever  satisfactions  attend  it,  they 
are  not  the  living  water  that  makes  glad  and  se- 
rene, conscious  of  imperishable  riches  and  craving 
nothing. 

Whence,  then,  has  any  soul  that  living  water? 
Appetite  has  nothing  to  draw  with,  and  the  well  is 
deep.  What  is  the  secret  of  that  happiness  which 
all  crave  as  their  proper  nutriment  and  natural 
right?  The  Latin  moralist  made  it  to  consist  in 
health.  The  object  of  a  wise  man's  prayer,  he 
says,  after  showing  the  folly  of  all  other  wishes, 
should  be  a  sound  mind  in  a  sound  body.  Un- 
questionably, health  in  that  large  sense  which  em- 
braces the  mental  with  the  bodily  functions  is  the 
greatest  of  temporal  blessings  ;  but  health  is  not  a 
thing  which  man  can  always  command,  or  which 


64  NOTHING   TO  DRAW   WITH. 

God  will  always  vouchsafe  to  prayer,  and  when 
vouchsafed  for  a  time,  it  is  not  an  impregnable, 
imperishable  good :  it  is  liable  to  countless  acci- 
dents ;  a  little  thing  may  undermine  it, —  a  little  too 
much  heat,  a  little  too  much  cold,  the  exigencies  of 
duty,  unavoidable  exposure,  or  an  untoward  event. 
And  if  it  escape  for  two  or  three  scores  of  years 
the  manifold  contingencies  of  life,  it  must  yield  at 
last  to  the  slow  decay  of  age.  To  the  healtliiest 
and  most  vigorous  the  time  must  come  when  the 
pitcher  will  be  broken  at  the  fountain  and  the 
wheel  at  the  cistern,  and  when  failing  nature  will 
have  nothing  to  draw  with,  yet  will  feel  as  keenly 
as  ever  that  the  well  is  deep.  Here  then  is  a 
limit  to  the  sovereign  efficacy  of  health,  beyond 
which  the  heathen  moralist  did  not  reach  with 
his  prescription. 

Another  solution  of  the  great  problem  is  given 
by  the  Hebrew  teacher  already  referred  to  in  an- 
other connection.  Ecclesiastes  ends  his  melan- 
choly story  with  this  "  conclusion  of  the  whole 
matter:  Fear  God,  and  keep  liis  commandments: 
for. this  is  the  whole  duty  of  man."  Yes,  a  life 
of  virtue,  if  one  could  accomplish  it,  a  life  of  un- 
swerving obedience  to  divine  commandments, — that 
is  real,  that  is  vital.  Yet  who  by  an  effort  of  the 
will  can  lead  a  life  of  unswerving  obedience  ?  Who 
even  by  taking  heed  thereto  can  wholly  cleanse  his 


NOTHING    TO  DRAW   WITH.  65 

ways  ?  Who  by  sheer  force  of  dogged  resolution 
can  fear  God  and  keep  his  commandments  ?  Who 
can  be  saved  by  the  works  of  the  Law  ?  To  this 
end  obedience  should  be  perfect  and  entire,  wanting 
nothing.  But  "no  man  liveth  and  sinneth  not;" 
and  the  greatest  legalist  among  Christian  teachers 
declares  that  '^  whosoever  shall  keep  the  whole  law, 
and  yet  offend  in  one  point,  he  is  guilty  of  all."  But 
granting  the  ability,  granting  a  possible  salvation 
by  works,  this  is  not  the  salvation  which  satisfies 
man's  deepest  need  ;  it  is  not  a  draught  that  reaches 
the  bottom  of  the  well.  I  can  suppose  that  one 
shall  lead  a  blameless  and  virtuous  life,  and  yet 
not  know  supreme  content.  For  though  it  is  true, 
as  sages  have  taught  and  saws  declare,  that  without 
virtue  there  is  no  happiness,  it  is  not  true  that 
virtue  in  this  sense  is  the  highest  and  perfect 
blessedness. 

In  what,  then,  consists  that  blessedness  which 
neither  health  nor  virtue  can  supply  ?  Where  and 
what  is  that  living  water  that  answers  to  nature's 
uttermost  need  ?  Tell  us,  some  greater  than  Solo- 
mon, what  to  draw  with  ;  for  the  well  is  deep.  And 
a  greater  than  Solomon  has  spoken :  "  He  that 
loseth  his  life  for  my  sake,  shall  find  it."  For  my 
sake,  —  that  is,  for  truth's  sake,  for  duty's  sake,  for 
the  sake  of  any  real,  permanent  good.  The  secret 
of  a  blessed  life  is  that  we  lose  ourselves  in  some 

5 


66  NOTHING    TO  DRAW   WITH. 

worthy  cause  or  work.  The  root  of  all  unhappi- 
ness  lies  in  the  thought  of  self.  All  desires  that 
terminate  in  self,  whether  animal,  intellectual,  or 
even  moral,  renew  and  increase  the  everlasting 
thirst.  It  needs  that  desire  be  turned  away  from 
self  and  fixed  on  something  without  us,  —  something 
which  is  loved  and  sought  for  its  own  sake.  The 
greater  the  object,  the  greater  and  more  enduring 
the  satisfaction.  To  lose  ourselves  in  an  infinite 
object  is  everlasting  life.  Can  a  man  do  this  by 
simply  willing  it?  Surely  not;  nor  can  the  will 
to  do  so  originate  in  a  theoretical  conviction.  It 
needs  something  more  than  a  true  perception  and 
a  right  resolve  to  bring  about  the  union  between 
the  individual  and  an  object  worthy  his  deepest 
devotion.  That  is  a  marriage  which  is  made  in 
heaven.  Only  the  grace  of  God  can  wed  the  soul 
with  the  absolute  good.  Yet  it  is  something  even 
to  see  the  truth  whose  realization  is  everlasting 
life,  and  to  know  at  least  the  self-delusion  we  are 
practising  when  we  seek  to  quench  with  temporal 
satisfactions  a  thirst  which  only  divine  satisfac- 
tions can  allay,  although  in  our  helplessness  we 
continue  to  practise  it.  We  are  near  awaking 
when  we  dream  that  we  dream. 

The  well  is  deep;  but  every  unselfish  pursuit 
dips  into  it,  draws  from  it,  and  can  never  exhaust 
it.     Happy  the  man  who  has  an  object  in  life,  — 


NOTHING    TO  DRAW   WITH.  67 

a  work,  a  mission,  which  takes  him  completely 
out  of  himself.  He  has  living  water,  and  who- 
soever drinketh  thereof  shall  never  thirst.  Of 
such  objects  there  is  no  lack  if  one  listens  to  the 
voice  which  speaks  to  every  soul,  "  Go  work  to-day 
in  my  vineyard."  Do  you  ask  where  the  vineyard 
is  in  which  the  good  Father  bids  us  work  ?  It  is 
no  reserved  spot,  no  plot  set  apart,  fenced  in  and 
select ;  it  is  man's  ubiquitous  abode.  The  vineyard 
is  wlierever  good  can  be  done  or  devised,  —  in  the 
streets  of  the  city,  in  its  stores  and  counting-rooms 
and  banks.  It  is  on  the  decks  of  ships,  in  the  sol- 
dier's bivouac,  in  the  logger's  camp,  in  your  house 
and  mine,  in  every  scene  of  human  life,  wherever 
moral  fruit  can  be  gathered,  wherever  moral  seed 
can  be  sown.  They  who  are  called  to  be  laborers 
in  that  vineyard  are  the  human  family,  one  and 
all,  —  whoever  is  capable  of  teaching  a  lesson,  of 
helping  a  neighbor,  of  speeding  the  world's  work, 
of  advancing  the  world's  weal,  of  relieving  a  want, 
of  imparting  a  joy.  The  call  to  labor  is  every  fac- 
ulty we  possess,  every  gift  received,  every  privilege 
conferred,  every  opportunity  offered.  The  call  to 
labor  is  the  fact  of  life.  The  hours  of  work  are 
morning  and  evening,  noon  and  night.  The  season 
of  ingathering  is  summer  and  winter,  spring  and 
autumn.  The  harvest  is  human  progress,  the  sum 
of  earthly  well  being  from  age  to  age. 


V. 

THE  PURE  IN  HEART  SHALL   SEE   GOD. 

Blessed  are  the  jpure  in  heart:  for  they  shall  see  God. 

Matt.  v.  8. 

TT  is  always  a  figurative  use  of  speech  when  we 
talk  of  seeing  God.  As  the  Jews  understood 
the  figure,  it  meant  to  behold  the  face  of  a  sover- 
eign, to  bask  in  the  light  of  his  countenance, 
to  be  blessed  with  his  peculiar  favor.  As  we 
understand  it,  to  see  God  is  to  apprehend  him, 
to  be  conscious  of  his  presence,  to  enjoy  his 
idea.  The  beatitude,  as  we  understand  it,  is  not 
a  benediction  radiated  from  the  face  of  a  sov- 
ereign, but  the  growth  of  tlie  spirit  into  a  fuller 
sense  of  the  divine,  —  a  freer,  nearer  commun- 
ion with  God.  In  other  words,  the  blessedness 
assured  to  the  pure  in  heart  is  not  a  passive 
reception  of  divine  favor,  but  a  vivid  conscious- 
ness of  Godhead. 

The  pure  in  heart  shall  see  God !  Our  percep- 
tion of  Deity  is  commensurate  with  our  moral 
development.     As  we  are  ourselves,  so  is  the  God 


THE  PURE  IN  HEART  SHALL  SEE  GOD.     69 

we  apprehend.  As  we  change  ourselves,  so  God 
changes  to  our  apprehension.  With  every  change 
that  comes  over  our  character  we  shift  our  point 
of  view.  We  know  how  differently  sensible  objects 
appear  as  the  point  of  view  varies  from  which 
they  are  beheld.  The  mountain  is  one  thing  seen 
in  the  far  distance  robed  in  the  azure  hue  flung 
over  it  by  atmospheric  illusion,  and  another  to  the 
wanderer  who  climbs  its  shaggy  sides.  The  even- 
ing star  is  one  thing  to  the  naked  eye,  and  a  dif- 
ferent thing  when  viewed  through  the  telescope ; 
how  different  still,  we  may  suppose,  to  the  dweller 
whose  being  is  cast  on  that  radiant  orb !  So  the 
invisible  objects  of  the  mind,  the  everlasting  ideas 
of  the  mind,  vary  with  the  character  and  culture 
of  the  mind  that  views  them.  The  idea  of  God  is 
held  with  what  different  modifications  by  different 
ages  and  minds !  It  has  never  been  wholly  want- 
ing to  the  race.  The  lowest  stage  of  humanity 
betrays  some  glimmering  of  this  celestial  light, 
though  broken  into  strange  refractions  by  the 
mists  of  ignorance.  The  highest  culture  can 
never  outgrow  its  illumination.  The  progress 
of  Humanity  may  be  traced  and  measured  by 
the  character  which  this  idea  has  assumed  in 
different  periods,  nations,  and  faiths.  The  first 
gods  were  the  misgrowths  of  Superstition. 


70     THE  PURE  IN  HEART  SHALL  SEE  GOD. 

"  She  taught  the  weak  to  bend,  the  proud  to  pray 
To  Power  unseen  and  mightier  far  than  they. 
She  from  the  rending  earth  and  bursting  skies 
Saw  gods  descend  and  fiends  infernal  rise ; 
Here  fixed  the  dreadful,  there  the  blest  abodes  : 
Fear  made  her  devils,  and  weak  Hope  her  gods." 

The  conceptions  which  men  formed  of  Deity 
when  the  gods  of  Greece  were  the  highest  models 
of  divine  greatness  and  the  supreme  objects  of 
religious  homage,  attest  the  low  condition  of  moral 
culture  from  which  they  sprung.  For  the  votary 
can  hardly  be  supposed  to  be  better  than  the  god 
of  his  devotion ;  and  just  in  proportion  as  men 
advance  in  moral  refinement  they  rise  to  higher 
conceptions  of  godhead,  —  from  the  gods  of  the 
Pantheon  to  the  Jehovah  of  Judaism,  from  the 
Jehovah  of  Judaism  to  the  Father  in  heaven  of 
the  Gospel  and  those  sublime  conceptions,  "  God 
is  Light,"  and  "  God  is  Love." 

What  is  true  of  nations,  periods,  and  religions  is 
true  of  individuals.  We  repeat  the  course  of  social 
development  in  our  individual  experience.  The 
purer  we  are  ourselves,  the  greater  our  moral  re- 
finement, the  better  the  God  of  our  conception, 
the  freer  from  every  taint  of  mortal  imperfection. 
It  may  be  objected  that  our  idea  of  God  is  tradi- 
tional ;  it  is  not  our  own  conception,  the  growth  of 
our  own  minds,  but  something  which  is  given  us 
in  the  doctrines  of  our  religion.     But  that  idea, 


THE  PURE  IN  HEART  SHALL  SEE  GOD.     71 

though  given,  cannot  he  our  idea  until  we  make 
it  ours  by  personal  experience.  Our  religion  may 
teach  that  God  is  Love ;  but  we  shall  not  so  appre- 
hend him  until  in  our  moral  development  we  have 
reached  that  stage  of  refinement,  and  consequently 
that  point  of  view,  from  which  God  can  be  recog- 
nized as  Love  by  us.  If  we  consult  the  history  of 
our  religion,  we  shall  find  that  the  Christian  idea 
of  God  as  given  in  the  New  Testament,  has  not 
been  the  prevailing  idea  of  the  Christian  world. 
Scarce  a  trace  of  this  idea  is  apparent  in  any  prom- 
inent actor  in  the  long  line  of  the  Christian  ages. 
There  stand  the  immortal  words  "  God  is  Love." 
When  has  this  idea  been  practically  acknowledged 
and  embraced?  In  what  church  symbol  or  con- 
fession has  it  been  set  forth  ?  What  creed,  from 
the  Athanasian  to  the  Westminster  Catechism, 
contains  it?  By  what  Christian  Council,  from  that 
of  Nicaea  to  that  of  Trent  or  the  Vatican,  was  it 
ever  enjoined?  Was  God  believed  to  be  Love 
when  the  heretics  of  Piedmont  were  hunted  like 
wild  beasts  for  endeavoring  to  restore  the  pristine 
faith  of  the  Gospel  ?  Was  God  conceived  to  be 
Love  when  Huss  and  Jerome  of  Prague  were  burned 
at  Constance  ?  Was  it  this  idea  that  kindled  the 
fires  of  Geneva  and  of  Smithfield  ?  Was  it  the 
perception  that  God  is  Love  that  prompted  the 
slaughter  of  the  Huguenots  and  the  tortures  of 


72     THE  PURE  IN  HEART  SHALL  SEE  GOD. 

the  Inquisition  ?  The  idea  is  given,  it  is  incul- 
cated by  apostolic  authority ;  but  men  are  inca- 
pable of  receiving  it  until  they  reach  the  moral 
elevation  from  which  it  flowed. 

If  we  consult  our  own  experience  we  shall  find 
that  our  idea  of  God  is  variable,  —  that  we  ap- 
prehend him  differently  according  to  our  mental 
states ;  that  though  theoretically  we  receive  the 
highest  idea  of  God,  our  apprehension  of  that  idea 
is  not  equally  clear  at  all  times ;  that  our  appre- 
ciation of  it  depends  on  our  moral  condition.  If 
at  any  time  we  have  consciously  transgressed  the 
law  of  God,  and  the  sense  of  that  transgression 
weighs  heavily  on  our  souls,  then  we  think  of  God 
as  avenging  Justice.  If  we  have  put  our  transgres- 
sion from  us  and  are  clear  of  that  stain,  God  seems 
to  us  the  loving  Father  once  more.  The  more  we 
seek  to  conform  ourselves  to  his  will  and  to  per- 
fect his  image  in  our  lives,  the  more  clearly  we 
apprehend  the  saying,  "  God  is  Love." 

It  is  a  matter  of  comparatively  little  importance 
what  metaphysical  conceptions  we  form  to  our- 
selves of  the  Godhead,  —  whether  we  conceive  of 
him  as  a  triune  existence  or  as  simple  unity ;  but 
it  IS  of  vast  importance  what  ideas  we  entertain 
of  his  moral  character,  —  whether  righteousness  or 
vengeance,  mercy  or  wrath,  predominate  in  our 
conception,  —  whether  we  apprehend  God  as  Force 


THE  PURE  IN  HEART  SHALL  SEE  GOD.     73 

or  as  Love.  And  again,  it  matters  little  what  our 
theory  is  about  God,  our  speculative  belief ;  but 
it  matters  infinitely  what  our  feeling  is,  and  the 
practical  persuasion  of  the  heart.  Men  are  some- 
times better  than  their  theories,  and  sometimes 
worse.  There  are  those  who  profess  a  stern  the- 
ology,—  a  God  inexorable,  unrelenting,  breathing 
vengeance,  and  inflicting  endless  pains, —  who  nev- 
ertheless, in  their  own  character  and  commerce 
with  their  kind,  are  mild  and  merciful,  full  of 
love,  always  ready  to  forgive  injuries,  never  will- 
ing to  avenge.  Mothers  I  have  known  who  would 
bear  forever  with  a  froward  child,  infinitely  pa- 
tient with  real  sin,  while  professing  a  God  who 
punishes  infinitely  imputed  sin,  and  who  were  alto- 
gether so  much  better  than  their  creed  that  one 
knew  not  which  more  to  admire,  —  the  power  of 
tradition  in  perverting  the  natural  judgment,  or  the 
power  of  a  beautiful  nature  to  resist  the  petrifying 
influence  of  such  a  doctrine.  What  shall  we  say 
of  such  cases,  in  which  there  would  seem  to  be  no 
correspondence  between  the  idea  of  God  in  the 
mind  and  the  moral  life  in  the  heart  ?  I  say, 
the  God  professed  in  such  cases  is  not  the  God 
believed ;  that  far  down  beneath  the  crust  of 
theology  and  beneath  the  rubbish  of  tradition 
there  lives  and  works  in  that  soal  an  idea  of 
God  which  is  worthy   and  true,   which  nourishes 


74      THE  PURE  IN  HEART  SHALL  SEE  GOD. 

it,  and  makes  its  practical  religion  better  than 
its  nominal.  Here,  too,  the  pure  heart  sees  God 
—  the  true  God,  the  God  of  the  Gospel,  the 
God  of  Love  —  under  all  the  disguises  of  a  false 
theology. 

On  the  other  hand,  there  are  those  who  profess 
belief  in  a  loving,  paternal  God  —  a  God  of  infinite 
compassion,  a  God  who  pities  as  a  father  his  chil- 
dren —  who  have  such  an  impression  of  God's 
mercy  that  they  will  hear  of  no  retribution  or 
penalty  for  sin,  but  who  themselves  are  charac- 
terized by  traits  the  very  opposite  of  those  they 
profess  to  adore,  —  harsh,  impatient,  tyrannical, 
vindictive,  indifferent  to  others'  good,  with  more 
of  hatred  than  of  love  in  their  composition,  —  and 
who,  if  they  possessed  the  power,  would  exercise 
a  government  the  reverse  of  that  which  they  as- 
cribe to  Deity,  would  persecute  their  enemies  with 
unappeasable  hatred,  and  crush  all  who  refused 
obedience  to  their  arbitrary  will.  In  this  case,  I 
say  again,  the  God  professed  is  not  the  God  who 
is  really  present  to  the  heart.  Such  characters 
can  never  see  such  a  God;  they  can  never  truly 
believe  him. 

"  Blessed  are  the  pure  in  heart :  for  they  shall  see 
God."  We  have  found  this  saying  true  so  far  as 
the  right  apprehension  of  God  is  concerned.  But 
not  only  is  our  power  of  appreciating  the  divine 


THE  PURE  IN  HEART  SHALL  SEE  GOB.     75 

attributes  proportioned  to  our  moral  development ; 
our  consciousness  of  God,  the  feeling  of  his  all- 
presence,  is  subject  to  the  same  condition.  The 
greater  our  moral  refinement,  the  more  God  dwells 
in  us  and  we  in  God.  In  one  sense,  indeed,  tlie 
Divine  Presence  does  not  depend  upon  us  or  on 
anything  out  of  itself.  We  conceive  of  God  as 
present  to  every  point  of  space  and  to  every  state 
of  mind.  But  we  must  also  conceive  that  the 
presence  of  God  is  one  thing  as  it  respects  his  own 
consciousness,  and  a  different  thing  as  it  respects 
ours.  There  is  a  limit  to  the  omnipresence  of 
God.  The  individual  consciousness,  —  that  is  a 
charmed  circle  into  which  even  God  does  not  enter, 
except  so  far  as  the  individual  is  made  receptive 
of  God  by  moral  and  spiritual  development.  We 
know  with  what  different  degrees  of  proximity 
finite  beings  approach  us,  independently  of  all  lo- 
cal relations.  When  is  a  human  being  near  to 
us  ?  When  we  think  of  him,  when  we  dwell  on 
his  idea.  Tlie  friend  whom  I  love  is  present  to 
me  at  the  distance  of  the  earth's  diameter.  The 
individual  who  converses  with  me  is  not  present 
if  my  heart  and  thoughts  do  not  accompany  his 
discourse.  God  is  present  to  us  only  when  we  are 
conscious  of  him,  when  we  converse  with  his  idea ; 
and  though  he  never  for  an  instant  withdraws 
from  any  one  of  us,  he  is  infinitely  removed  from 


76     THE  PURE  IN  HEART  SHALL  SEE  GOD. 

those  whose  consciousness  excludes  him,  who  never 
draw  near  to  him  with  mind  or  heart.  In  propor- 
tion as.  our  moral  nature  is  unfolded  we  draw  near 
to  God  by  moral  gravitation ;  we  see  him.  There 
is  nothing  between  us  and  God  but  our  own  im- 
perfections, our  selfishness,  our  impiety  and  sin. 
It  needs  but  a  heart  purified  from  worldliness  and 
self,  from  mean  and  degrading  associations,  to  see 
God  as  truly,  though  not  in  the  same  way,  as  we 
see  the  objects  about  us.  For  then  everything 
which  we  see  will  be  full  of  God.  His  presence 
will  be  seen  to  inform  all  Nature.  It  will  smile 
upon  us  from  every  form  of  being,  and  pass  before 
us  in  every  aspect  of  life.  Then  we  shall  see  all 
beauty  to  be  his  beauty,  all  power  his  will,  all 
intelligence  his  inspiration,  all  creatures  his  ideas, 
all  Nature  his  organ,  all  spirit  his  life.  Why  is  it 
that  popular  superstition  in  time  past  removed 
God  from  the  earth  and  enthroned  him  above  the 
skies  ?  Why  should  it  ever  have  occurred  to  man 
that  any  other  region  was  a  fitter  residence  for 
Almighty  Power  than  his  own  planet  ?  Because 
man  was  impure  and  could  not  see  God  in  his  own 
sphere,  but  conceived  him  infinitely  removed,  and 
thought  he  should  honor  him  the  more,  the  more 
he  increased  the  distance  between  God  and  him- 
self. The  popular  theology  still  conceives  of  God 
as  afar  off,  though  it  speaks  of  his  omnipresence. 


THE  PURE  IN  HEART  SHALL  SEE  GOD.     77 

He  is  thought  to  be  more  present  to  some  other 
sphere  than  to  this.  Hereafter,  it  is  supposed,  we 
shall  be  translated  to  that  sphere,  and  then  first  we 
shall  see  God.  Would  that  men  might  learn  once 
for  all  that  there  is  no  change  of  sphere  for  man 
except  by  change  of  mind  and  heart !  If  you 
should  die  to-day,  your  sphere  would  be  the  same 
for  all  that.  But  change  your  mind,  your  heart, 
and  the  world  is  changed.  Only  a  new  heart  can 
ever  transport  us  to  a  new  sphere,  and  only  a  pure 
heart  can  ever  transport  us  into  the  presence  of 
God.  "  We  sometimes  complain,"  says  Martineau, 
"  of  the  conditions  of  our  being  as  unfavorable  to 
the  discernment  and  the  love  of  God.  We  speak 
of  him  as  veiled  from  us  by  our  senses,  and  of  the 
world  as  the  outer  region  of  exile  from  which  he 
is  peculiarly  hid.  In  imagining  what  is  holy  and 
divine  we  take  our  flight  into  other  worlds,  and 
conceive  that  there  the  film  must  fall  away  and  all 
adorable  realities  burst  on  our  sight.  Alas !  what 
reason  have  we  to  think  any  other  station  in  the 
universe  more  sanctifying  than  our  own  ?  .  .  . 
The  dimness  we  deplore  no  travelling  will  cure ; 
the  most  perfect  of  observatories  will  not  serve 
the  blind.  We  carry  our  darkness  with  us,  and 
instead  of  wandering  to  fresh  scenes,  and  blaming 
our  planetary  atmosphere,  and  flying  over  creation 
for  a  purer  air,  it  behoves  us  to  sit  by  our  own 


78     THE  PURE  IN  HEART  SHALL  SEE  GOD. 

wayside,  and  cry,  'Lord,  that  I  may  receive  my 
sight!'" 

The  difficulty  of  seeing  God  lies  not  in  him, 
but  in  us.  His  invisibility  is  an  attribute  of 
our  nature,  not  of  his.  We  can  only  see  as  we 
are.  It  is  only  our  impurities  that  separate  us 
from  him.  As  fast  as  these  are  removed,  the 
Divine  nature  will  open  upon  us,  will  fill  up  our 
whole  field  of  vision,  and  convert  all  things  into 
itself.  The  pure  in  heart  not  only  see  God,  but 
they  see  nothing  else.  Everything  they  behold  is 
charged  with  his  idea;  every  appearance  reveals 
his  essence ;  every  event  accomplishes  his  provi- 
dence. They  behold  all  things  in  God,  and  God 
in  all  things.  Blessed  are  they !  Blessed  in  this 
beatific  vision,  this  angelic  theory,  far  beyond  the 
blessedness  which  the  Jewish  mind  connected  with 
seeing  God ;  blessed  in  the  fulness  of  spiritual  life ; 
blessed  in  the  consciousness  of  an  immortal  destiny. 
Who  of  human  kind  has  been  most  blessed  in  our 
apprehension  ?  Of  all  who  ever  trod  this  earth, 
the  most  blessed  was  he  who  first  uttered  this  beat- 
itude. And  yet  what  a  lot  was  his !  Not  happy 
surely,  in  the  vulgar  sense  of  that  term ;  not  happy, 
judged  by  earthly  standards  of  felicity ;  yet  su- 
premely blessed,  seeing  God  face  to  face.  He 
saw  him  not  only  in  the  aspects  of  nature,  in 
the  lilies  of  the  field,  in  the  fowls  of  the  air,  in 


THE  PURE  IN  HEART  SHALL  SEE  GOD.     79 

the  innocence  of  little  children,  and  the  course 
of  events,  but  he  saw  God  in  himself;  he  saw 
himself  in  God.  He  saw  that  there  was  noth- 
ing between  God  and  him ;  that  he  and  the  Father 
were  one. 

May  we  ever  look  to  enjoy  a  vision  and  a  blessed- 
ness like  this  ?  May  we  ever  look  to  see  God  as 
Jesus  saw  him  ?  May  we  hope  to  be  conscious  of 
Deity  as  he  was  conscious  ?  Will  the  time  ever 
come  when  we  too  can  say,  without  blasphemy,  I 
and  the  Father  are  one  ?  Are  we  sufficiently  pure 
in  heart  even  to  desire  this  consummation  ?  Does 
it  seem  to  us  the  most  desirable  that  can  be  ?  If 
not,  let  us  ask  ourselves  what  is  desirable  ?  What 
would  we  have  if  unbounded  power  were  given  us 
to  have  and  to  be  what  we  would  ?  Paint  to  your- 
self a  destiny  that  would  quite  satisfy  your  crav- 
ing. Imagine  a  condition  that  would  content  you 
wholly  and  forever.  If  you  follow  your  imagina- 
tion to  its  end,  you  will  see  at  last  that  there  is  no 
destination  that  can  satisfy  all  your  desires,  no 
condition  that  would  content  you  wholly  and  for- 
ever, except  it  be  one  that  is  bringing  you  nearer 
to  God  and  giving  you  a  more  adequate  vision  and 
a  more  intense  enjoyment  of  his  idea. 

Nearness  to  God  or  estrangement  from  him  will 
be  found  at  last  to  be  the  gauge  and  criterion  of 
blessedness  and   misery  for  moral  natures.     The 


80     THE  PURE  IN  HEART  SHALL  SEE  GOD. 

purity  of  heart,  the  perfect  unfolding  of  the  moral 
life  which  shall  make  us  see  God,  which  shall 
make  us  one  with  him,  —  all  reasoning  and  all 
experience  point  to  this  as  the  supreme  good  for 
man  ;  and  to  alienation  from  him  as  the  crowning 
evil. 


VI. 

THE   SOUL'S   DELIVERANCE. 

Bring  my  soul  out  of  prison,  that  I  may  praise  thy 
name.  Psalm  cxlii.  7. 

'T^HIS  Psalm  was  supposed  by  some  Hebrew 
commentators  to  have  been  composed  in  the 
cave  of  AduUam,  in  which  the  author  secreted  him- 
self from  the  machinations  of  Saul.  That  cavern 
experience  being  the  nearest  approach  to  literal 
imprisonment  to  be  found  in  the  history  of  David,  it 
was  foolishly  concluded  that  the  cave  of  Adullam 
must  have  been  the  prison  he  meant.  Surely,  there 
were  many  passages  in  the  life  of  David,  and  many 
experiences  of  David's  heart,  which  might  be  so 
designated  with  more  propriety  than  that  tempo- 
rary retreat.  To  him,  I  suppose,  as  to  other  noble 
and  endowed  natures,  and  indeed  to  most  mortals, 
there  were  moments  when  life  itself  seemed  a 
prison,  —  when  the  soul  confined  in  its  own  con- 
sciousness tasted  all  the  bitterness  of  bondage 
without  its  forms. 

6 


82  THE  sours  DELIVERANCE. 

There  are  many  experiences  which  take  this 
character  and  produce  this  effect.  There  are  pas- 
sages in  every  life  which  involve  this  captivity. 
Who  of  us  all  is  so  fortunate  as  not  to  have 
tasted  at  times  of  the  bondage  of  bodily  or  men- 
tal suffering  ?  Is  there  one  who  has  not  been  the 
prisoner  of  disease,  of  headache  or  heartache,  or  the 
prisoner  of  doubts  and  fears,  —  the  prisoner  of  do- 
mestic calamity  and  disappointed  hopes,  —  a  pris- 
oner to  hours  of  sharp  distress, — "a  prisoner  long 

In  gloom  and  loneliness  of  mind, 
Deaf  to  tlie  melody  of  song, 
To  every  form  of  beauty  blind." 

But  waiving  these  special  instances,  there  is  one 
universal  experience  which  claims  to  be  noticed  in 
this  connection,  —  one  species  of  confinement  com- 
mon to  all  who  rise  above  the  level  of  a  merely  ani- 
mal life.  I  mean  the  conflict  we  all  experience 
between  the  ideal  and  the  actual,  between  desire 
and  fruition,  our  conceptions  and  our  attainments, 
our  designs  and  our  acts.  We  all  have  our  ideal, 
our  dream  of  prosperity,  perhaps  of  desert,  our  vis- 
ion of  a  blessed  life,  —  at  least  occasional  convic- 
tions of  the  inadequacy  of  our  present  being  and 
doing,  and  aspirations  after  something  better. 
Could  we  only  reproduce  this  ideal,  could  we  only 
realize  these  aspirations  in  the  life !  But  who  does 
this  ?     What  hero  or  saint  ever  makes  his  actual 


TFIE   sours  DELIVERANCE,  83 

life  correspond  with  his  ideal,  his  practice  equal  to 
his  vision  ?  There  is  this  discrepance,  this  contra- 
diction, between  the  two  parts  of  our  nature  and 
between  the  two  realms  of  our  life,  —  the  ideal  and 
the  actual,  the  theoretic  and  the  practical.  Our 
seeing  is  always  in  advance  of  our  being.  It  is  so 
in  the  sphere  of  physical  experience  as  well  as  of 
the  mind.  A  glance  of  the  eye  shows  us  objects  a 
hundred  millions  of  miles  removed;  but  a  radius 
of  a  very  few  feet  bounds  the  uttermost  reach  of  the 
hand,  and  the  earth's  diameter  at  farthest  bounds 
the  uttermost  range  of  locomotion.  What  wonder 
if  with  our  mental  vision  also  we  see  farther  than 
we  can  reach,  and  see  better  than  we  are !  What 
wonder  if  glorious  possibilities  dance  before  our 
eyes,  while  sordid  realities  trail  by  our  side,  —  if 
our  theory  sees  the  heavens  open,  while  our  practice 
crawls  in  the  dust! 

This,  then,  is  the  prison  to  which  I  especially  in- 
vite your  attention.  This  is  a  prison  in  which  we 
all  have  been  confined,  —  the  feeling  of  incapacity, 
the  insufficiency  of  life,  the  conflict  between  the 
ideal  and  the  actual ;  on  the  one  hand  a  dissonance 
between  our  desire  and  our  destiny,  and  on  the 
other  hand  a  discrepance  between  our  theory  and 
our  practice.  Life  disappoints  our  wishes  in  what 
it  brings,  and  it  disappoints  our  purpose  in  what  it 
accomplishes. 


84  THE   sours  DELIVERANCE. 

1.   Our  destiny  does   not   correspond  with   our 
desire.     Our  kingdom  of  heaven  is  always  com- 
ing   and   never    comes.      Imagination    dreams   of 
blessedness   which   reality   never  knows,   and   we 
soon  learn   that  life   has   nothing  so  fine   as   its 
dreams.     The  difficulty  is  not   that  this  or   that 
particular  prize  to  which  we  aspired  has  not  been 
attained,  that  this  or  that  possession   which  the 
heart  coveted  has   proved  impracticable.     It  may 
be  that  all  we  wished  has  been  accomplished.     In 
most  cases  I  believe  it  is  accomplished,  and  often 
more   than   we   wished.     The  projects  which   we 
planned  have  been  achieved  ;  the  prizes  we  pursued 
have  been  won.     Success  in  that  sense  is  all  but 
sure  to  vigorous  effort  and  patient  toil.      What 
youth   craved,  old   age  has  its  fill  of.     But   that 
which   should    accompany    success  —  satisfaction, 
peace  —  comes   not.     Instead   thereof,  care,  vexa- 
tion, weariness  of  spirit.     Riches,  fame,  love,  prove 
other  in  possession  than  they  were  in  prospect  and 
desire.     The  fruit  that  looked  so  tempting  on  the 
tree  is  insipid  to  the   taste.      The  mountain  top 
which  drew  the  longing  eyes  from  afar,  and  which 
cost  so  much  pain  and  toil  in  the  ascent,  when 
reached  at  last  is  found  to  be  barren  rock  or  eter- 
nal snow.     If  it  lifts  above  the  rest  of  the  world, 
it  isolates  and   chills  in   proportion  as  it  raises. 
They  who  gather  most  can  enjoy  no  more  than  be- 


THE  SOUL'S  DELIVERANCE.  85 

longs  to  one,  and  they  who  possess  most  are  most 
apt  to  be  as  though  they  possessed  not.  The  most 
successful  are  often  those  who  feel  most  deeply  the 
burden  of  the  great  tragedy,  the  insufficiency  of 
life,  the  distance  which  separates  our  destiny  and 
our  desire.  "  As  a  worm,"  says  Taylor,  "  creeps 
upon  the  ground  with  her  share  and  portion  of 
Adam's  curse,  and  lifts  up  her  head  to  partake  a  lit- 
tle of  the  blessings  of  the  air  and  opens  the  junctures 
of  her  imperfect  body,  but  still  must  return  to  abide 
the  fate  of  her  own  nature,  and  dwell  and  sleep  in 
the  dust ;  so  are  the  hopes  of  mortal  man.  He 
opens  his  eyes  and  looks  upon  fine  things  at  a  dis- 
tance, and  shuts  them  again  with  weakness  because 
they  are  too  glorious  to  behold.  And  the  man  re- 
joices because  he  hopes  fine  things  are  staying  for 
him,  but  his  heart  aches  because  he  knows  there 
are  a  thousand  ways  to  miss  of  these  glories ;  and 
though  he  hopes  yet  he  enjoys  not,  he  longs  but  he 
possesses  not,  and  must  be  content  with  his  portion 
of  the  dust."  Thus  life  imprisons  us  by  its  limita- 
tions, by  its  inadequacy  to  our  desire.  It  becomes 
a  prison  to  the  soul  whenever  and  in  proportion  as 
that  inadequacy  is  felt. 

2.  Life  disappoints  our  purposes  in  what  it  ac- 
complishes or  in  what  we  accomplish  by  it.  The 
same  distance  intervenes  between  our  conception 
and  our  attainment   as  between  our  destiny   and 


86  THE   SOUUS  DELIVERANCE. 

our  desire.  We  conceive  in  our  meditations  an 
idea  of  excellence  which  is  never  realized ;  we  ima- 
gine a  perfection  in  our  works  and  pursuits  which 
is  never  attained  ;  we  propose  to  ourselves  models 
of  character  and  life  which  our  practice  belies. 
"  See  that  thou  make  all  things  according  to  the 
pattern  showed  to  thee  in  the  mount !  "  The  earnest 
soul  is  forever  haunted  by  a  vision  of  what  might 
be  and  should  be.  "  The  pattern  in  the  mount !  " 
Could  we  only  abide  in  that  mount  of  vision ! 
Could  we  only  abide  in  our  conceptions,  and  not 
be  compelled  to  bring  them  to  the  test  of  action, 
what  heroes  and  saints  we  should  be  !  When  the 
vision  is  on  us  we  feel  it  is  good  for  us  to  be  there, 
and  like  the  giddy  disciple  on  the  Mount  of  Trans- 
figuration, would  fain  build  our  tabernacle  to  fix 
and  perpetuate  the  ideal  glories  which  pass  before 
the  mind.  But  destiny  forbids.  The  world  claims 
us ;  we  must  quit  the  mountain  and  come  down  to 
real  life.  That  coming  down  from  the  mountain, 
how  hard  it  is !  How  abrupt  and  trying  the  de- 
scent from  theory  to  practice,  and  how  soon  the 
first  contact  with  the  world  explodes  our  dream, 
and  melts  our  heroism  into  thin  air!  There,  on  the 
mount,  the  most  arduous  seemed  practicable  ;  here, 
on  the  level  of  every-day  life,  the  most  trivial  is  a 
burden.  There  our  virtue  was  impregnable ;  here 
the  first  temptation  causes  us  to  offend.     There  we 


THE  SOUL'S   DELIVERANCE.  87 

were  ready  to  be  offered  for  duty's  sake ;  here  a  pin- 
prick provokes  our  impatience.  We  propose  to 
ourselves  some  work  to  be  accomplished  by  our  in- 
dustry, some  worthy  achievement  which  shall  be  a 
witness  of  our  quality  and  a  blessing  to  the  world. 
It  stands  so  complete  in  our  conception,  —  the  exe- 
cution will  be  but  sport,  a  brief  and  easy  labor  of 
love.  We  lay  hand  on  our  task,  and  soon  find  that 
our  conception  has  outrun  our  faculty.  We  faint 
beneath  the  burden  we  have  taken  upon  ourselves ; 
the  sweat  of  our  brow  and  the  strength  of  our 
hearts  are  scarce  sufficient  for  the  work.  In  labor 
and  sorrow  we  bring  forth  at  last.  We  accom- 
plish something,  —  the  work  is  done  ;  but  how  faint 
and  poor  compared  with  the  archetype  we  saw  in 
our  vision !  Our  weary  days  are  in  it,  but  our 
ideal  is  not  there.  Our  noblest  products,  how  wide 
of  the  pattern  showed  us  in  the  mount !  Thus  life 
disappoints  our  intent  and  baffles  our  endeavor, 
and  thus  it  becomes  a  prison  to  the  eager  soul  in 
the  conscious  limitation  of  our  powers.  What 
bondage  more  galling  to  quick  and  aspiring  minds 
than  this  sense  of  limitation,  of  inadequacy,  the 
disproportion  between  our  conceptions  and  our 
powers, — this  contradiction  of  boundless  desires 
and  small  satisfactions,  heroic  purposes  and  feeble 
works, —  tliis  everlasting  conflict  between  theory 
and  practice,  between   the   ideal   and  the  actual. 


88  THE   SOWS  DELIVERANCE. 

between  the  visions  of  the  mind  and  the  realities 
of  life ! 

Whether  it  was  this  which  extorted  from  David 
the  prayer,  "  Bring  my  soul  out  of  prison,"  I  know 
not ;  but  seeing  that  David  was  a  man  of  like  na- 
ture with  ourselves,  it  may  be  presumed  that  he 
too  shared  the  universal  burden,  and  that  this  sup- 
plication of  his  expressed  the  same  feeling  of  the 
insufficiency  of  life  which  oppresses  all  sensitive 
and  reflective  minds.     It  is  this  that  has  prompted 
similar  expressions  from  men  of  note  in  every  age. 
It  was  this  that  wrung  from  the  patriarch  Jacob 
the  sad  confession,  "  Few  and  evil  have  been  the 
years  of  my  life."     It  was  this  that  dictated  the 
words   ascribed  to  Moses :    "  Thou   carriest  them 
away  as  with  a  flood ;  they  are  as  a  sleep.    All 
our  days  are  passed  away  in  thy  wrath :  we  spend 
our  years  as  a  tale  that  is  told.     The  days  of  our 
years   are   threescore  years   and   ten ;   and   if   by 
reason  of  strength  they  be  fourscore  years,  yet  is 
their  strength   labor  and  sorrow ;   for  it  is  soon 
cut  off,  and  we  fly  away."     It  was  this  that  spoke 
through  the  lips  of  Job :  "  Man  that  is  born  of  a 
woman  is  of  few  days,  and  full  of  trouble.     He 
Cometh  forth  like  a  flower,  and  is  cut  down :  he 
fleeth  also  as  a  shadow,  and  continueth  not."     It 
was  this  that  inspired  the  sullen  music  of  Eccle- 
siastes  :  "  Vanity  of  vanities  ;  all  is  vanity.     What 


THE   SOUL'S   DELIVERANCE.  89 

profit  hath  a  man  of  all  his  labor  ? "  It  was  this 
that  made  Christian  Paul  say,  on  the  very  thresh- 
old, as  he  supposed,  of  the  heavenly  kingdom :  '-The 
whole  creation  groaneth  and  travaileth  in  pain  to- 
gether until  now.  And  not  only  they,  but  ourselves 
also,  which  have  the  first-fruits  of  the  Spirit,  even 
we  ourselves  groan  within  ourselves,  waiting  for 
the  adoption,  to  wit,  the  redemption  of  our  body." 
And  again  more  emphatically,  "  To  will  is  present 
with  me  ;  but  how  to  perform  that  which  is  good,  I 
find  not.  For  the  good  that  I  would,  I  do  not: 
but  the  evil  which  I  would  not,  that  I  do.  ...  0 
wretched  man  that  I  am !  who  shall  deliver  me 
from  the  body  of  this  death  ? " 

The  time  would  fail  if  I  were  to  cite  the  secular 
testimonies  which  bear  on  this  point,  —  if  I  were  to 
attempt  to  bring  before  you  the  poets,  the  heroes, 
and  the  sages  who  in  one  form  or  another,  in  the 
way  of  confession  or  supplication,  have  echoed  the 
prayer  of  David,  *'  Bring  my  soul  out  of  prison." 
"  Help  my  insufficiency,  take  away  the  burden  of 
infirmity,  redeem  my  life,  make  it  equal  to  my  in- 
tent and  desire."  Humanity  with  one  heart  con- 
fesses the  experience  implied  in  this  petition. 
Humanity  with  one  voice  says,  Amen !  to  this 
prayer. 

I  cannot  say  whether  or  no  the  prayer  has  been 
fully  and  satisfactorily  answered  to  any  in  the  flesh. 


90  THE  SOUUS  DELIVERANCE. 

But  this  I  say,  that  divine  Providence  vs^orking  in 
human  history  has  not  left  us  without  guidance 
and  without  hope  in  this  radical  and  universal 
need.  The  answer  has  been  suggested  at  least,  if 
not  realized.  The  way  of  escape  from  this  prison 
of  our  infirmity  has  been  indicated  in  one  recorded 
life,  in  which  the  conflict  between  the  ideal  and  the 
actual  has  been  done  away ;  the  life  of  "  that  man 
whom  he  hath  ordained,"  the  divine  man,  whom 
with  some  dim  sense  of  this  service  his  adoring 
disciples  have  named  their  Redeemer  and  their 
God.  And  this  to  me  is  the  great  significance  of 
the  life  of  Jesus.  I  see  in  it  the  reconciliation  of 
the  ideal  and  the  real.  This  is  the  true  historical 
atonement  in  Christ.  This  is  the  meaning  which 
lies  in  the  ancient  dogma  of  the  Church, —  the 
dogma  of  the  Incarnation,  the  Word  made  flesh, 
God  manifest  in  man.  Jesus  expressed,  as  no 
other  has  done,  his  conception  in  his  life  ;.  he  real- 
ized his  idea  and  turned  it  into  fact,  and  made  it  a 
part  of  the  history  of  man. 

The  greatest  of  Christian  painters,  the  immortal 
Raphael,  has  figured  this  marriage  of  the  real  and 
the  ideal  in  the  life  of  Jesus,  in  his  painting  of  the 
Transfiguration.  The  upper  half  of  the  canvas 
represents  the  transfigured  Christ,  the  Lord  of 
glory,  with  Moses  and  Elias  by  his  side  ;  the  lower 
exhibits  the  melancholy  scene  which  immediately 


THE   SOUL'S  DELIVERANCE.  91 

followed, — that  sad  passage  of  real  life  into  wliich 
the  Master  entered  immediately  on  his  descent 
from  the  mountain,  —  the  dumb  and  lunatic  child 
with  his  helpless  and  sorrowing  parents  and  friends, 
who  have  come  to  implore  the  Rabbi  in  his  behalf. 
Superficial  critics  have  blamed  the  artist  for  bring- 
ing these  two  scenes,  so  different  in  character  and 
scope,  into  one  view.  They  would  rather  that  each 
should  be  depicted  on  a  separate  canvas.  But  the 
instinct  of  the  artist  has  proved  in  this  instance  a 
better  guide  than  the  judgment  of  the  critic  to  the 
true  unfolding  of  the  Gospel  story.  So  near  to- 
gether are  vision  and  action,  theory  and  practice, 
the  glory  and  the  task,  the  ideal  and  the  real,  the 
God  and  the  man,  in  the  life  of  Jesus  !  He  could 
pass  at  once  from  the  vision  to  the  deed,  and  be 
equally  true  and  equally  great  in  the  one  as  in  the 
other.  He  knew  how  to  come  down  from  the 
mountain  with  undiminished  power  and  glory  ;  he, 
after  converse  with  the  eternal  and  beatific  dreams, 
could  enter  at  once  on  the  scenes  of  active  life,  and 
accept  the  first  and  humblest  occasion  that  offered, 
without  leaving  the  better  part  of  his  being  behind 
him.  He  has  solved  in  his  life  the  old  contradic- 
tion, and  done  away  the  discrepance  between  here 
and  there,  between  the  spiritual  world  and  the 
actual,  "  he  hath  broken  down  the  middle  wall  of 
partition,  ...  to  make  in  himself  of  twain  one 


92  THE   sours  DELIVERANCE. 

new  man,"  presenting  thus  the  example  of  an  ab- 
solute man,  where  there  is  neither  flesh  nor  spirit, 
but  where  flesh  is  sublimed  into  spirit,  and  spirit 
is  realized  in  flesh. 

And  if  it  be  asked  how  this  was  effected,  —  by 
what  hidden  path,  by  wliat  mystic  discipline,  the 
divine  man  perfected  his  humanity  and  entered 
into  glory  and  into  Godhead,  —  putting  out  of 
view  the  providential  side  of  that  wondrous  life,  and 
looking  only  at  the  human,  we  may  take  for  answer 
the  solution  given  in  the  Scripture :  "  Who,  being 
in  the  form  of  God,"  that  is,  made,  as  man,  in  the 
image  of  God,  "  thought  it  not  robbery  to  be  equal 
with  God,"  or,  more  correctly  rendered,  "  thought 
not  by  robbery  to  equal  God,"  that  is,  did  not  at- 
tempt divinity  by  ambitious  striving  beyond  his 
appointed  spliere,  "  but  made  himself  of  no  reputa- 
tion, and  took  upon  him  the  form  of  a  servant, 
and  was  made  in  the  likeness  of  men  : "  that  is, 
lived  and  labored  like  other  men,  "  and  being 
found  in  fashion  as  a  man,  he  humbled  himself,  and 
became  obedient  unto  death,  even  the  death  of  the 
cross."  That  was  the  way  by  which  Jesus  rose; 
that  was  his  discipline  and  method,  and  his  deifica- 
tion. "  Wherefore,"  the  writer  continues,  "  God  also 
hath  highly  exalted  him,  and  given  him  a  name 
which  is  above  every  name :  that  at  the  name  of 
Jesus  every  knee  should  bow  .  .  .  and  every  tongue 


THE   sours  DELIVERANCE.  93 

should  confess  that  Jesus  Christ  is  Lord  to  the 
glory  of  God  the  Father."  In  other  words,  Jesus 
accepted  the  conditions  of  his  lot,  externally  one  of 
the  humblest,  and  exalted  himself  and  it,  and  made 
his  life  divine  by  perfect  obedience  to  those  condi- 
tions. He  did  not  aspire  to  the  place  of  command 
to  which  his  people  gladly  would  have  exalted  him, 
but  abode  in  his  native  humility  and  walked  with 
his  peasant  companions,  and  found  the  topics  of 
his  duty  among  the  halt  and  blind  and  publicans 
and  sinners,  and  preached  his  gospel  to  the  poor. 
He  did  not  seek  to  transcend  his  sphere  externally 
by  self-aggrandizement,  but  was  satisfied  to  fill  it 
completely,  casting  into  it  all  the  fulness  of  his 
royal  nature.  Thus  he  brought  his  soul  out  of 
prison,  —  the  prison  of  low  and  bounded  reality,  — 
by  ignoring  its  bounds,  living  wholly  in  the  eter- 
nal. Making  the  will  of  God  his  first,  sole  object, 
his  meat  and  his  drink,  he  laid  hold  on  eternal  life ; 
and  thus  by  one  shining  example  of  self-emancipa- 
tion, by  one  perfect  instance  of  a  liberated  life,  he 
preaches  still  to  spirits  in  prison  the  world  over,  to 
whom  the  gospel  of  that  life  has  come.  Let  all 
who  pine  in  conscious  captivity  of  mind  and  heart, 
all  who  feel  themselves  immured  in  stony  negations, 
and  beat  with  impotent  longing  against  the  walls  of 
their  lot,  let  them  take  to  heart  the  lesson  of  that 
life.     The  walls  will  dissolve  and  disappear  as  fast 


94  THE   sours  DELIVERANCE. 

as  the  truth  which  it  teaches  breaks  in  upon  their 
night.  Do  we  sigh  with  the  Psalmist,  *'  Bring  my 
soul  out  of  prison,"  let  us  know  that  humble  and 
perfect  obedience  is  the  key  which  unlocks  the 
prison  of  the  soul,  and  leads  it  forth  from  the 
stifling  atmosphere  of  its  discontent  into  broad  and 
liberal  day.  Accept  the  actual  in  which  you  are 
placed.  Put  away  selfish  and  sickly  ambition,  and 
find  yourself  in  your  appointed  conditions.  Adjust 
yourself  with  the  terms  of  your  lot.  Instead  of 
seeking  to  lift  yourself  above  it  by  uneasy  efforts, 
seek  rather  to  fill  it  out  by  throwing  into  it  the  ful- 
Hess  of  your  faculty  and  your  life.  It  is  the  error 
of  indolent  natures  to  think  that  happiness  and 
virtue  and  opportunities  of  well-doing  belong  to 
certain  conditions :  that  they  could  be  useful  and 
blessed,  if  anywhere  else  than  where  they  happen 
to  be,  —  if  the  climate  were  different,  or  the  time, 
or  place,  or  company.  Be  equal,  first,  to  your  own 
sphere.  Do  full  justice  to  that ;  satisfy  perfectly 
the  present  occasion,  fulfil  to  the  uttermost  each 
successive  task  and  demand  of  the  place  and  the 
hour.  It  is  only  by  being  faithful  in  that  which 
is  least  that  we  prove  ourselves  equal  to  higher 
trusts. 

Cuvier,  the  celebrated  naturalist,  whenever  his 
pupils  came  to  him  with  some  new  anatomical 
theory,  would  bid  them  test  it  by  dissecting  the  first 


THE   sours  DELIVERANCE.  95 

insect  that  came  in  their  Tvay.  If  your  theory  of 
well  doing  will  not  apply  to  your  present  sphere,  if 
it  will  not  apply  to  the  humblest  instance,  you  may 
be  sure  it  will  not  hold  in  relation  to  any  other. 
Here  we  are  ;  that  is  our  first  concern.  Let  us  see 
that  we  be  truly  and  wholly  and  beneficently  here, 
with  all  our  faculty  and  heart.  It  may  seem 
brighter  elsewhere,  but  that  is  an  optical  illusion ; 
here,  too,  it  is  good  to  be.  God  is  here,  and  man  is 
here,  and  the  calls  and  topics  of  daily  duty.  And 
duty  is  everywhere  the  same  thing,  everywhere  suffi- 
cient and  divine.  "  Give  me  where  to  stand,"  said 
the  Greek.  Stand  where  you  are,  is  the  nobler  pos- 
tulate ;  stand  where  you  are,  and  move  the  world. 
Heaven's  zenith  is  perpendicular  to  every  spot  on 
the  earth's  round.  This  is  the  lesson  which  comes 
to  us  from  the  life  of  Christ,  who  united  the  truest 
vision,  the  noblest  service,  and  the  highest  glory 
with  the  lowest  lot.  The  only  way  to  bring  our 
soul  out  of  prison  is  to  find  ourselves  in  that  which 
we  call  and  make  a  prison  by  our  misdirected  long- 
ing, to  throw  ourselves  into  it  with  all  our  heart 
and  all  our  strength,  to  fill  the  God-given  mould 
with  the  fulness  of  our  life.  This  no  one  entirely 
succeeds  in  doing ;  but  every  approach  to  it  is 
progress  in  the  right  direction.  With  every  step  in 
that  path  our  redemption  draweth  nigii.  Just  so  far 
as  we  attain  in  this  direction,  our  prison  enlarges 


96  THE   sours  DELIVERANCE. 

and  disappears.  The  Kingdom  of  Heaven  is  here 
or  nowhere.  Duty  is  the  key  that  unlocks  it  to  all. 
Only  so  far  as  we  succeed  in  making  the  will  of 
God  our  meat  and  our  drink,  can  we  ever  lay  hold 
on  everlasting  life. 


VII. 

EESERVED   POWER. 

He  that  is  faithful  in  that  which  is  least,  is  faithful 
also  in  much.  Luke  xvi.  10, 

T  TUMAN  life  is  made  up  in  large  measure  of 
"^  -*•  humble  tasks  and  petty  offices,  which,  how- 
ever indispensable  in  their  places,  are  strangely 
disproportioned  to  the  powers  and  capacities  of 
those  who  perform  them,  and  which  seem  out  of 
keeping  with  the  dignity  of  man,  considered  as  a 
child  of  God  and  an  heir  of  immortality.  There 
is  no  man  so  humble  in  ability  or  station  that  he 
is  not  greater  than  the  work  he  is  called  to  per- 
form ;  and  most  earthly  work  seems  trivial  when 
compared  with  the  higher  calling  of  the  human 
soul.  For  the  soul  in  this  present  is  often  a  Sam- 
son in  bonds,  captive  to  coarse  Philistine  taskmas- 
ters, shorn  of  his  strength,  bereft  of  eyesight,  set  to 
grind  for  daily  bread.  Of  the  greatest  and  wisest 
of  human  kind,  how  many  have  toiled  in  lowly 
places  and  mechanical  tasks !  Carpenters,  tent- 
makers,  shoemakers,  lens-grinders  have  been  the 
lio-hts  of  the  world. 


98  RESERVED  POWER. 

We  think  the  smaller  the  function  the  smaller 
the  capacity  required  for  its  performance ;  and 
when  we  consider  the  kinds  of  labor  which  make 
the  world's  work,  how  much  drudgery  and  me- 
chanical routine,  what  servile  and  pitiful  tasks 
compose  the  sum  of  human  affairs,  we  are  tempted 
to  say  that  man  is  too  great  for  his  work ;  that  a 
race  of  creatures  less  splendidly  furnished,  less 
finely  organized,  less  curiously  and  variously  en- 
dowed, —  something  between  brute  and  man,  — 
would  be  quite  adequate  and  better  fitted  for  such 
employment.  What  need  of  immortal  powers,  of 
beings  made  in  the  image  of  God,  to  carry  on  the 
buying  and  selling,  the  chaffering  and  tinkering, 
the  nameless,  tasteless  taskwork  of  daily  life  ? 

To  this  view  of  life,  very  natural  but  very  super- 
ficial, a  truer  wisdom  opposes  the  maxim,  "  lie 
that  is  faithful  in  that  which  is  least  is  faithful 
also  in  much  ; "  he  shows  himself  equal  to  higher 
spheres  and  nobler  tasks.  In  other  words,  it  mat- 
ters not  what  the  work  is  which  is  given  ns  to  do. 
All  work  requires  faculty  and  fidelity  and  consci- 
entious care  for  its  best  performance.  All  work 
tries  and  tests  these  qualities,  and  educates  them. 
And  moreover  the  qualities  required  and  proved 
by  faithful  performance  of  that  which  is  least,  are 
the  same  with  those  which  qualify  us  for  success 
in  that  which  is  greatest.     This  is  the  Christian 


RESERVED  POWER.  99 

doctrine  concerning  work,  —  a  doctrine  abundantly 
and  signally  illustrated  in  the  life  of  Jesus.  He 
who  by  virtue  of  his  transcendent  endowments 
might  have  claimed  exemption  from  the  com- 
mon lot,  was  conversant  from  first  to  last  with 
ordinary  scenes  and  things.  His  ministry,  if  we 
consider  the  sphere  in  which  it  was  exercised,  its 
topics  and  occasions,  was  one  continued  act  of 
self-humiliation.  His  extraordinary  gifts  were  ap- 
plied to  ends  very  different  from  those  which 
might  have  been  expected  to  furnish  the  topics 
and  occasion  of  so  divine  a  mission.  They  pro- 
duced no  splendid  achievements  such  as  a  worldly 
ambition  might  propose  to  itself.  They  were  exer- 
cised in  lowly  offices  of  love  wliich  had  no  aim 
beyond  the  immediate  comfort  they  afforded  to 
some  private  circle  or  some  individual  sufferer. 
The  objects  of  those  charities,  we  all  know,  were 
not  the  noble  and  the  rich,  but  the  obscure  and  de- 
spised, the  little  ones  of  earth,  the  poor  villager,  the 
contemned  foreigner,  the  cripple  by  the  wayside, 
the  paralytic  at  the  well.  Such  was  the  sphere 
in  which  Jesus  wrought,  and  such  the  offices  of 
which  his  ministry  was  composed.  A  true  son, 
in  this  as  in  all  things,  of  the  heavenly  Father, 
who  also  worketh  in  secret  and  obscurity,  and  in 
places  and  things  that  are  counted  vile ;  as  active 
in  the  processes  of  corruption  as  in  the  sublimest 


100  RESERVED  POWER. 

growths  of  time ;  bestowing  the  same  care  in  ad- 
justing the  articulations  of  a  worm  as  in  settling 
the  balance  of  a  w^orld.  Throughout  the  life  of 
Jesus  we  behold  this  disproportion  between  the 
actor  and  his  sphere.  We  might  feel  pained  at 
the  incongruity,  —  we  might  think  that  so  kingly 
a  nature  should  have  had  a  more  conspicuous 
arena  than  the  villages  of  Galilee,  and  more  wor- 
thy objects  than  the  peasants  who  inhabited  them, 
—  did  we  not  see  that  the  true  sphere  of  Jesus 
has  proved  to  be  the  whole  world  of  humanity  in 
which  his  word  and  his  example  live  and  work  to 
this  day. 

It  is  a  great  mistake  to  suppose  that  the  more 
insignificant  the  task  the  smaller  the  capacity 
required  to  perform  it,  and  that  those  who  are 
poorest  in  culture  and  endowments  are  best  fitted 
to  discharge  satisfactorily  the  humbler  offices  of 
life.  Alas  for  us  if  we  are  not  greater  than  our 
work !  It  can  never  be  done  as  it  should  be  done, 
unless  we  bring  to  it  more  wisdom,  ability,  and 
virtue  than  it  seems  to  require,  than  we  can  man- 
age in  most  cases  to  put  into  it.  Beside  the 
specific  degree  of  power  and  goodness  which  may 
seem  to  be  requisite  for  a  given  sphere  or  work, 
there  is  needed  a  power  and  goodness  which  are 
not  always  or  often  expressed,  which  do  not  ap- 
pear to  the  superficial  observer,  but  which  serve 


RESERVED  POWER.  101 

to  give  completeness  and  effect  to  daily  tasks  and 
the  commonplace  drudgery  of  life. 

In  saying  this,  I  but  state  a  principle  whicli 
pervades  the  whole  economy  of  Nature.  Whatever 
product  of  Nature  we  examine,  we  see  at  once  that 
it  could  not  be  what  it  is  were  it  not  a  great  deal 
more  than  it  seems  to  be,  did  there  not  lie  behind 
it  a  hidden  magazine  of  inexhaustible  power  and 
riches  which  only  minute  analysis  can  detect.  A 
flower  or  leaf  when  decomposed  exhibits  a  few  sim- 
ple elements  combined  in  certain  definite  propor- 
tions. A  little  carbon,  a  little  oxygen  and  hydrogen, 
compose  the  whole  glory  of  the  vegetable  creation. 
But  the  meanest  flower  that  blows,  the  most  insig- 
nificant leaf  that  springs  in  the  depth  of  the  forest, 
is  predicated  on  infinite  resources,  and  presupposes 
the  whole  immensity  of  Nature  as  the  background 
of  its  fragile  life.  In  the  animal  creation  thei'e 
slumber  instincts  which  in  ordinary  cases  never 
come  into  play.  But  let  a  sufficient  exigency 
occur,  and  a  new  faculty  starts  up  at  the  right 
moment  to  rescue  the  animal  from  impending  de- 
struction. In  the  economy  of  the  human  frame 
there  are  stored  up  forces  which  are  not  needed 
for  the  common  occasions  of  life,  and  many  a  life 
passes  without  giving  the  least  hint  of  their  exist- 
ence. But  let  the  system  sustain  an  important 
lesion,  as  in  the  case  of  a  broken  limb,  and  watch- 


102  RESERVED  POWER. 

ful  Nature  then  takes  up  her  hidden  power,  and 
calls  into  action  the  healing  virtues  of  her  invisible 
dispensary  to  knit  the  fractured  parts  ;  and  all 
that  medical  art  can  do  is  to  follow  reverently  the 
first  intention  of  the  great  Physician. 

And  so  human  life,  the  voluntary  life  of  toil  and 
action  to  which  as  human  beings  we  are  called, 
not  less  than  the  involuntary  life  of  the  animal 
economy,  must  contain  within  itself,  and  would 
be  miserably  defective  did  it  not  contain,  a  reserved 
power  wherewith  to  meet  the  unforeseen  exigencies 
to  which  every  sphere  and  almost  every  life  is 
exposed.  And  apart  from  these  exigencies,  the 
daily  tasks  of  life  are  ill  performed,  its  ordinary 
duties  ill  provided  for,  unless  there  is  more  of 
faculty  and  virtue  than  they  seem  at  first  to  re- 
quire. Experience  will  show  that  the  greater  the 
ideas  with  which  Ave  are  conversant,  and  the  wider 
our  sphere  of  vision,  and  the  more  profound  our 
views  of  life,  and  the  richer  our  talent,  and  the 
more  extensive  our  acquirements,  the  better  pre- 
pared we  are  for  the  meanest  offices,  which  cease 
to  be  mean  when  ennobled  by  such  conditions. 
Drudgery  is  no  longer  drudgery  when  such  powers 
and  resources  engage  in  it,  when  Faith  and  Love 
stoop  down  from  their  heavens  to  perform  a  ser- 
vant's work.  Unless  we  have  more  than  enough, 
we  have  not  enough  tor  the  claims  that  are  on  us. 


RESERVED  POWER.  103 

In  the  matter  of  education  you  would  think  the 
teacher  but  poorly  furnished  for  his  function  who 
should  know  no  more  than  he  was  called  to  teach ; 
who  should  barely  have  gone  over  the  ground 
which  his  pupils  are  to  go  over,  whose  acquire- 
ments should  be  but  a  few  steps  only  in  advance  of 
their  lessons.  You  would  say  that  the  teacher  to 
be  efficient  and  successful  must  know  a  great  deal 
more  than  his  pupils,  a  great  deal  more  than  he 
is  required  to  teach.  The  uttermost  of  knowledge 
and  ability  ever  possessed  by  man  would  not  be 
superfluous.  Though  it  might  not  be  called  into 
action  in  the  way  of  direct  instruction,  it  would  all 
go  to  illustrate  the  subject  taught.  It  would  give 
to  the  mind  of  the  teacher  that  compass  and  ele- 
vation, that  perfect  accuracy  and  fulness  of  detail, 
which  acts  like  inspiration  on  the  mind  of  the 
pupil.  In  some  way  or  other  the  pupil  would 
be  enriched  by  all  the  stores  of  knowledge  the 
instructor  might  bring  to  his  task.  It  has  been 
well  said,  that  "  the  child's  elementary  instruction 
would  be  best  conducted,  if  possible,  by  omnis- 
cience itself."  You  would  think  your  representa- 
tive in  the  national  council  but  poorly  fitted  for 
his  post,  who  should  know  no  more  than  the  aver- 
age of  his  constituents.  Other  things  being  equal, 
you  would  choose  for  this  purpose  the  best  in- 
formed, the  wisest  and  ablest  that  could  be  found. 


104  RESERVED  POWER. 

You  would  have  him  possessed  of  stores  of  knowl- 
edge, and  a  wealth  of  funded  power  which  in  ordi- 
nary cases  might  not  be  elicited ;  which  session 
after  session  might  pass  without  calling  into  ac- 
tion ;  but  by  means  of  which  he  would  be  able,  on 
the  sudden,  to  meet  any  occasion  that  might  occur, 
and  to  concentrate  the  study  of  many  years  on 
some  constitutional  or  international  question  of 
difficult  arbitrament  and  momentous  issues. 

But  not  to  insist  on  great  emergencies,  the 
ordinary  duties  of  every  calling  require  for  their 
successful  performance  more  ability  and  knowl- 
edge than  appears  outwardly  in  their  respective 
products.  The  plea  of  an  advocate  at  the  bar, 
the  prescription  of  a  physician,  nay,  the  material 
product  of  the  artisan,  imply  a  far  greater  range 
of  knowledge,  longer  and  more  various  studies, 
than  they  exhibit,  than  those  who  are  served  by 
them  are  apt  to  suspect.  They  could  not  be  what 
they  are,  were  there  not  a  great  deal  more  behind 
them  than  appears.  It  would  be  easy  to  show  that 
in  every  department  of  life  the  amount  of  skill  vis- 
ible to  the  vulgar  eye,  in  the  effect  produced,  is  a 
very  small  part  of  that  which  is  actually  required 
to  produce  it. 

Apply  this  principle  to  those  thousand  nameless 
tasks  which  belong  to  no  particular  calling,  but 
which   nevertheless    comprise   so   large  a  part   of 


'    RESERVED  POWER.  105 

every  life,  —  offices  which  are  held  in  such  light 
estimation,  and  yet  are  so  essential  to  human 
comfort  and  well-being.  They  require  no  great 
measure  of  technical  skill ;  they  involve  but  little 
knowledge  or  art ;  but  they  demand  what  is  more 
than  these,  —  they  demand  for  their  faithful  dis- 
charge a  moral  discipline  and  a  moral  elevation ;  a 
conscientiousness,  I  may  say,  a  heavenly  minded- 
ness  with  which  they  seem,  at  first  glance,  to  have 
no  connection,  which  it  may  even  seem  extravagant 
and  absurd  to  name  in  connection  with  them. 
Jesus,  I  think,  indicated  this  connection,  when  on 
one  occasion  he  laid  aside  his  garment  and  girded 
himself  as  a  menial  to  wash  the  feet  of  those  rude 
men,  so  incapable  of  understanding  the  exquisite 
refinement,  the  divine  exaltation  of  his  nature. 
He  has  taught  us  a  lesson  which  we  have  learned 
but  imperfectly,  if  we  do  not  perceive  its  broad 
application  to  all  the  drudgery  of  life.  He  has 
taught  us  to  call  nothing  unworthy  or  degrad- 
ina:  which  the  necessities  of  human  nature  and 
human  life  have  imposed ;  to  think  nothing  vile 
but  sin ;  to  disdain  no  office  which  life  may  re- 
quire at  our  hands ;  to  esteem  nothing  beneath 
our  dignity  which  is  necessary  to  be  done,  and 
which  it  is  well  to  do. 

In  Jesus  we  behold  the  highest  degree  of  spirit- 
ual elevation  linked   with   mean   conditions,   and 


106  RESERVED  POWER.    ' 

taking  upon  itself  the  form  of  a  servant,  —  a  heav- 
enly soul  in  a  lowly  sphere ;  a  strange  contrast  of 
humble  offices  and  sublime  ideas.  In  every  son 
of  man  there  must  be  an  elevation  of  spirit  above 
the  ordinary  level  of  life,  to  meet  with  dignity  its 
ordinary  demands  and  satisfactorily  to  fulfil  its 
humblest  duties. 

As  in  every  work  of  art  and  in  every  profes- 
sional service  there  is  more  of  skill  and  ability 
than  appears  on  the  surface,  so  in  every  good  act, 
in  every  duty  well  performed,  in  every  hard  or  irk- 
some and  distasteful  thing  which  is  done  for  con- 
science' sake,  there  is  more  of  goodness  than 
appears,  more  than  it  is  possible  to  compute.  It 
is  impossible  to  compute  how  much  of  moral  dis- 
cipline and  religious  faith,  how  much  of  heroism 
and  self-sacrifice  may  enter  into  the  composition 
of  a  character,  whose  greatest  visible  achievement 
consists  in  simply  bearing  and  forbearing  as  daily 
occasion  demands. 

Life  is  poor  and  pitiful  if  we  look  only  at  its 
material  results.  So  much  toil  and  care  to  keep 
the  house  in  order  and  the  body  whole.  We  often 
think  with  the  sceptic  in  the  play,  "  How  stale, 
flat,  and  unprofitable  are  all  the  uses  of  this 
world!"  We  must  look  to  its  moral  issues  if  we 
would  know  the  true  significance  of  life.  We 
must  think  that  these  things  are  topics  of  duty 


RESERVED  POWER.  107 

and  means  of  discipline  and  growth,  that  they 
answer  that  purpose  as  well  or  better  than  if  the 
All-wise  had  made  us  "  rulers  over  many  things," 
and  set  us  to  govern  states  or  create  worlds. 
We  may  indulge  our  fancy  with  a  state  of  being 
and  a  sphere  of  action  better  adapted  to  the  wants 
and  capacities  of  a  rational  soul,  where  there  shall 
be  nothing  common  or  mean,  no  drudgery,  no  irk- 
some and  distasteful  tasks,  where  all  our  labors 
shall  be  regal  and  stately,  and  every  duty  have  a 
lofty  and  romantic  cast.  But  a  little  reflection 
will  convince  us  that  this  is  all  a  delusion.  Just 
so  far  as  duty  ceases  to  be  irksome  it  ceases  to 
be  discipline.  Like  Christ,  the  Master,  we  must 
take  upon  ourselves  the  form  of  servants,  if  ever 
we  would  reign  with  him  in  glory.  Let  us  not 
complain  that  the  soul  is  too  great  for  its  dwelling, 
but  make  room  as  we  can  in  the  mortal  tabernacle 
for  the  immortal  guest,  and  think  how  much  bet- 
ter it  is  that  the  soul  should  be  greater  than  its 
sphere,  than  that  the  sphere  should  be  too  great 
for  the  soul ;  and  how  poor  we  should  be,  if,  in- 
stead of  having  more  than  enough  for  our  daily 
tasks,  we  had  not  sufficient  wherewith  to  perform 
them. 

Never  fear  that  the  heir  of  immortality  will 
squander  his  inheritance  among  the  trivialities  and 
commonplaces  of  his  low  estate,  that  the  soul  will 


108  RESERVED  POWER, 

belittle  itself  witli  its  small  tasks,  until  at  last  it 
becomes  "  subdued  to  what  it  works  in."  Not 
small  tasks  belittle,  but  small  aims  and  petty  views 
and  fears.  The  Son  of  Man  sacrifices  nothing  of 
his  dignity,  but  only  adds  to  it  when  he  stoops  to 
anoint  the  eyes  of  the  beggar  and  to  wash  the  dis- 
ciples' feet.  And  the  soul  should  be  as  the  Son 
of  Man,  —  a  regal  nature  in  a  mean  environment, 
always  greater  than  its  office,  yet  never  disdaining 
the  meanest  office  that  comes  in  its  way,  thinking 
no  trifle  of  earthly  details  too  small  for  its  care, 
while  it  deems  no  prize  of  earthly  greatness  suffi- 
cient for  its  reward.  "  He  that  is  faithful  in  that 
which  is  least,  is  faithful  also  in  much  ;  and  he  that 
is  unjust  ill  the  least,  is  unjust  also  in  much." 


VIII. 

THE  GOSPEL  OF  MANUAL  LABOR. 

Is  not  this  the  carpenter's  son  ?  .  .  .  Whence  then  hath 
this  man  all  these  thiiigs  ?  Matt.  xiii.  55,  56. 

'T^HE  countrymen  of  Jesus  did  not  by  this  ques- 
-*■  tion  intend  to  disparage  his  hereditary  calling, 
or  to  intimate  an  incompatibility  between  the  car- 
penter and  the  prophet,  but  only  to  express  their 
astonishment  that  this  particular  carpenter's  son  — 
their  own  fellow-townsman  —  should  come  to  be 
a  teacher  of  divine  truth.  The  presumption  was 
not  against  the  craft,  as  if  that  were  inconsistent 
with  the  widest  knowledge  and  the  highest  wisdom, 
but  against  the  fact  that  one  who  was  born  in  their 
own  midst,  whom  they  knew  all  about,  should  arrive 
at  such  eminence  in  that  capacity.  "  Is  not  his 
mother  called  Mary,  and  his  brethren  James  and 
Joses  and  Simon  and  Judas  ?  And  his  sisters,  are 
they  not  all  with  us  ?  Whence  then  hath  this  man 
all  these  things  ? "  It  was  just  the  old  inveterate 
prejudice,  not  yet  obsolete,  against  home-born 
genius  and   worth,  —  the  prejudice  which  fancies 


110       THE   GOSPEL   OF  MANUAL  LABOR. 

that  wisdom  must  needs  be  a  foreign  product,  that 
all  good  and  divine  things  must  be  imported,  that 
by  no  possibility  can  recent  and  native  growths 
compare  with  those  which  come  to  us  from  ancient 
time  or  distant  lands.  Against  this  prejudice  it 
would  seem  that  Jesus  himself  found  it  vain  to 
contend.  He  said  unto  them,  "  A  prophet  is  not 
without  honor,  save  in  his  own  country,  and  in 
his  own  house.  And  he  did  not  many  mighty 
works  there,  because  of  their  unbelief." 

There  was  no  presumption,  I  say,  on  the  part  of 
the  countrymen  of  Jesus  against  the  carpenter's 
craft  or  any  other  mechanical  employment  as  in- 
compatible with  the  highest  intellectual  and  spir- 
itual eminence.  The  Jews  had  none  of  those 
prejudices  as  to  the  comparative  capability  and 
respectability  of  different  pursuits  which  prevail  in 
modern  society.  The  Jewish  polity,  theocratic  as 
it  was  in  its  civil  theory  and  constitution,  was  very 
democratic  in  its  social  principle.  It  had  kings 
and  priests  by  divine  right,  but  no  aristocracy  in 
our  sense  of  the  term,  —  no  aristocracy  founded  on 
employment,  but  only  an  aristocracy  of  age.  In 
fact,  so  great  was  the  estimation  in  which  the  use- 
ful arts  were  held  that,  according  to  the  Talmud, 
all  parents  were  required  to  have  their  children 
instructed  in  some  trade  or  craft  which  they  might 
or  might  not  practise  in  after  years.     "  The  high- 


THE   GOSPEL    OF  MANUAL  LABOR.       H] 

est  rank  in  the  estimation  of  the  people,"  says  a 
recent  authority,  "  was  not  reserved  for  the  priests, 
but  for  the  learned  ;  and  many  of  the  most  emi- 
nent of  these  were  tradesmen.  They  were  tent- 
makers,  weavers,  sandal-makers,  carpenters,  tan- 
ners, bakers,  cooks.  A  newly  elected  president  of 
the  senate  was  found  by  his  predecessor,  who  had 
been  ignominiously  deposed  for  his  overbearing 
manner,  all  grimy  in  the  midst  of  his  charcoal 
mounds.  Of  all  things  most  hated  were  idle- 
ness and  asceticism.  Piety  and  learning  them- 
selves received  their  proper  estimation  only  when 
joined  to  bodily  work.  '  Add  a  trade  to  your 
studies,'  was  one  of  their  sayings,  '  and  you  will  be 
free  from  sin,'  '  The  tradesman  at  his  work  need 
not  rise  before  the  greatest  Doctor.'  '  Greater  is 
he  who  derives  his  livelihood  from  work  than  he 
who  fears  God.' "  Wise  doctrine  and  wise  uses  are 
these  ;  their  adoption  and  practice  by  us  would 
prove  the  best  safeguard  of  our  national  pros- 
perity. The  national  prosperity  suffers  from  the 
general  aversion  to  manual  labor,  which  turns 
the  young  men  of  the  country  away  from  agri- 
cultural and  mechanical  employments,  and  drives 
them  in  excess  to  those  pursuits  which  add  noth- 
ing to  the  real  wealth  of  the  nation,  but  which 
hold  out  the  lure  of  city  life,  and  tempt  with  the 
distant  chance  of  a  fortune  to  be  obtained  by  adroit 


112      THE   GOSPEL   OF  MANUAL  LABOR, 

speculation  rather  than  by  patient  and  productive 
industry.  The  chance  is  distant,  but  by  it  a  large 
portion  of  the  brain  and  muscle  of  the  nation  is 
seduced  from  the  paths  and  works  that  most  sorely 
need  it.  Labor  in  the  way  of  production  is  com- 
paratively scarce ;  labor  in  mercantile  life  is  redun- 
dant. Let  the  public  prints  advertise  for  a  clerk 
in  a  counting-room,  and  straightway  a  hundred  ap- 
plicants present  themselves  as  candidates  for  the 
vacant  office.  Had  these  waiters  on  the  chances  of 
trade  been  instructed  in  some  useful  handicraft, 
they  might  have  been  profitably  employed  in  need- 
ful service  instead  of  suing  for  the  crumbs  which 
fall  from  the  table  of  commercial  prosperity. 

The  disinclination  to  mechanical  labor  arises  not 
from  indolence  alone,  but  is  due  in  part  to  the  false 
and  pernicious  conceit  that  somehow  the  business 
of  selling  is  more  respectable  than  that  of  produc- 
ing, the  work  of  the  counting-room  than  that  of  the 
mechanic  ;  and  that  sacrifice  of  gentility  is  involved 
in  the  use  of  the  axe  or  the  spade  or  the  trowel  or 
tlie  plane.  The  origin  of  this  fallacy  dates  from 
barbarous  ages,  when  fighting  was  considered  to  be 
the  real  business  of  life,  when  the  only  respectable 
employment  was  thought  to  be  that  of  the  warrior, 
and  the  useful  arts  and  all  the  necessary  work  of 
society  was  assigned  to  slaves.  The  servitude 
once  associated  with  every  kind  of  mechanical  labor 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  MANUAL   LABOR.       113 

I  suppose  to  be  the  real  source  of  the  still  prevail- 
ing prejudice  against  it.  The  prejudice,  I  need  not 
saj,  has  absolutely  no  foundation  in  reason.  No 
man  in  his  senses  will  pretend  that  it  has,  —  that 
any  useful  and  productive  art  can  degrade  the 
workman  employed  in  it.  What  constitutes  re- 
spectability in  any  pursuit  is,  first,  its  utility,  and 
second,  its  difficulty.  Skilled  and  profitable  labor, 
—  that  is  the  only  true  standard  by  which  to  esti- 
mate the  merit  and  consequently  the  respectability 
of  any  craft  or  pursuit.  Is  it  useful  ?  In  answering 
that  question  regard  must  be  had  to  the  kind  and 
degree  of  utility,  —  the  final  use  being  increase  of 
life.  Whatever  increases  the  quantum  of  life  is 
useful  in  the  measure  in  which  it  does  tliat.  Useful 
is  all  which  ministers  to  the  life  of  the  body  ;  more 
useful  is  that  which  ministers  to  the  life  of  the 
spirit.  In  one  way  or  another  we  look  for  use.  A 
work  may  be  very  difficult,  but  is  not  on  that  ac- 
count alone  entitled  to  respect.  The  performance 
of  a  rope-dancer  is  difficult,  but  being  attended  with 
a  minimum  of  use  to  those  who  behold  it,  cannot 
rank  very  high  in  the  scale  of  human  pursuits.  On 
the  other  hand,  a  work  may  be  very  useful,  but  if 
it  be  one  which  requires  little  training  and  involves 
no  skill  in  the  operation,  we  hold  it  in  less  esteem 
than  works  of  more  difficult  attainment.  The  indi- 
vidual engaged  in  it  may  have  our  highest  respect 

8 


114       THE   GOSPEL   OF  MANUAL  LABOR. 

for  the  moral  qualities  which  he  brings  to  his  task, 
for  being  faithful  in  that  which  is  least ;  but  the 
occupation  itself  we  cannot  rate  very  highly.  The 
able  and  skilled  workman  in  whatever  craft  or  call- 
ing—  mechanical  or  commercial,  literary  or  scien- 
tific —  is  worthy  of  honor  in  the  ratio  partly  of  the 
skill  and  the  rarity  of  the  skill  which  he  brings  to 
his  work,  and  partly  of  the  value  of  the  product. 
Reason  acknowledges  no  distinction,  and  custom 
should  acknowledge  none  in  the  honorableness  of 
human  employments  which  is  not  based  on  this 
criterion,  —  difficult  to  do  and  important  to  have 
done. 

Why  should  the  exercise  of  a  moderate  degree  of 
talent  through  the  pen  be  more  considered  than  the 
same  amount  of  talent  acting  through  the  instru- 
mentality of  the  saw  or  plane  ?  Why  should  a 
second  or  third  rate  writer  take  precedence  in  so- 
cial esteem  of  a  clever  mechanic  ?  For  my  own 
part,  I  would  rather  be  able  to  do  something  really 
useful  with  the  hand  than  produce  something  of 
ephemeral  and  doubtful  value  witli  the  brain.  I 
would  rather  be  the  maker  of  a  good  pair  of  shoes, 
or  a  coat,  or  a  creditable  piece  of  joiner's  work,  than 
of  most  of  the  stories  and  poems  and  editorial  es- 
says that  pass  current  under  the  name  of  literature. 
Our  literature  so  called  is  altogether  in  excess  of 
the  useful  arts. 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  MANUAL  LABOR.      115 

It  will  seem,  I  fear,  a  vain  undertaking  to  com- 
bat the  views  and  uses  of  society  in  this  particular. 
And  certainly  an  immediate  or  speedy  revolution 
of  opinion  and  practice  in  relation  to  this  matter  is 
not  to  be  expected.  The  only  way  in  which,  so  far 
as  I  can  see,  the  needful  reform  can  be  effected,  is 
through  the  medium  of  education.  Our  present 
system  of  education  is  faulty  in  that  it  seeks  and 
contents  itself  with  a  very  one-sided  development. 
We  educate  the  brain,  and  except  in  the  use  of  the 
pen,  and  perhaps,  to  a  certain  extent,  of  the  pencil, 
we  do  not  educate  the  hand.  In  some  of  the  pub- 
lic schools  of  Massachusetts  the  girls  are  taught 
the  use  of  the  needle.  That  I  consider  a  very  im- 
portant step,  —  the  most  important  that  for  many 
years  has  been  taken  in  a  right  direction.  Better 
than  all  the  philosophy  and  rhetoric  with  which  it 
has  been  the  fashion  to  cram  their  minds,  more 
educating  than  most  of  the  studies  pursued  at 
school,  is  the  use  of  the  needle.  But  the  boys,  for 
the  most  part,  at  school  and  at  college  acquire  no 
manual  art  but  the  use  of  the  pen.  Arrived  at  the 
age  of  twenty  without  having  learned  any  other 
art,  were  there  even  no  prejudice  preventing,  they 
will  not  be  likely  to  turn  to  mechanical  pursuits 
for  a  livelihood,  but  seek  it  in  the  use  of  the  pen. 
It  seems  to  be  taken  for  granted  that  the  sons  of 
the  rich  and  the  well  to  do  will  not  choose  to  em- 


116       THE   GOSPEL   OF  MANUAL  LABOR. 

brace  such  pursuits ;  and  those  on  the  other  hand 
whom  circumstances  seem  to  have  destined  to  a 
life  of  mechanical  labor  are  taken  from  the  schools 
at  too  early  an  age,  and  bound  to  their  destined 
trade  with  unfurnished  minds  and  a  knowledge  only 
of  the  merest  rudiments  of  intellectual  training. 
Here  is  a  double  evil.  The  sons  of  the  rich,  the 
well  educated,  are  virtually  cut  off  from  mechanical 
employments,  even  if  their  taste  incline  in  that  di- 
rection; while  those  who  follow  such  employments 
—  mechanics,  artisans,  who  need  to  be  thoroughly 
educated  in  all  branches  of  polite  learning  as  a 
counterpoise  to  a  destined  life  of  manual  toil  — 
grow  up  in  comparative  ignorance  of  all  but  the 
rules  and  relations  of  their  particular  craft,  and 
thereby  in  part  are  defrauded  of  social  estimation 
and  converse  with  the  highly  educated  which  might 
otherwise  be  accorded  to  them. 

Answering  to  these  evils,  the  two  reforms  most 
needed  to  establish  a  balance  of  industry  and  cor- 
rect the  undue  preponderance  of  sedentary  and 
mercantile  pursuits,  are,  first,  that  the  sons  of  the 
rich  without  losing  caste  should  be  free  to  adopt  a 
handicraft  as  a  means  of  livelihood  ;  and  second, 
that  every  mechanic  should  have  the  best  education 
which  the  schools  and  universities  here  or  any- 
where can  give.  I  am  fain  to  believe  that  these 
ends  are  in  the  order  of  social  progress  and  among 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  MANUAL  LABOR.      117 

the  events  of  coming  time  ;  that  the  false  system  of 
education  which  separates  intellectual  from  manual 
labor,  denying  to  one  half  of  mankind  the  highest 
culture  of  mind  and  manner,  and  consigning  the 
rest  to  a  weak  and  luxurious  existence,  rendering 
them  unable  in  case  of  need  to  support  themselves 
by  their  own  handiwork,  will  be  replaced  by  a 
broader  discipline,  embracing  the  whole  man  in  its 
scope  and  aim.  Those  who  have  pondered  these 
matters  most  deeply  are  agreed  that  man  was  made 
to  labor  with  the  hand  as  well  as  with  the  brain ; 
that  unless  he  so  labors  he  cannot  fulfil  the  pur- 
pose intended  in  his  physical  organization  ;  and 
that,  conversely,  man  is  called  to  intellectual 
progress  as  well  as  to  manual  labor,  and  that 
unless  his  mind  is  disciplined  and  cultured,  he 
fails  of  the  purpose  intended  in  his  mental  endow- 
ments. I  am  fain  to  believe  that  the  time  will 
come  when  the  children  of  the  rich  as  well  as  of 
the  poor  shall  be  trained  to  manual  toil,  when  the 
children  of  the  poor  as  well  as  of  the  rich  shall 
have  the  opportunity  of  the  highest  culture,  and 
when  it  shall  be  equally  rare  to  be  unskilled  in 
some  mechanical  art  and  to  have  a  barren  mind. 

Among  the  cant  phrases  that  vex  the  ear  of  the 
time  is  the  often  recurring  expression,  "  the  coming 
man."  What  the  coming  man  is  to  be  and  to  do, 
and  not  to  be  or  to  do,  is  a  topic  of  frequent  specu- 


118       THE   GOSPEL   OF  MANUAL  LABOR. 

lation  of  a  harmless  if  not  very  profitable  kind. 
My  prophecy  is  that  the  coming  man  will  be  a 
working  man.  Whatever  else  he  may  drop  or  take 
up  of  old  or  new  ideas,  he  will  drop  the  conceit 
that  there  is  anything  degrading  or  prejudicial  to 
gentility  in  manual  labor,  and  take  up  the  faith 
that  the  skilful  and  profitable  use  of  the  hand  by 
man  or  woman  is  a  truer  patent  of  nobility,  and  a 
worthier  passport  to  the  best  society  than  lordly 
lineage  or  heraldic  device.  And  such  a  result  will 
be  but  the  consummation  of  a  process  which  began 
with  the  first  enfranchisement  of  labor,  when  Eu- 
rope emerging  from  feudal  darkness  began  to  per- 
ceive that  industry  is  a  better  guaranty  of  national 
wealth  than  the  sword.  The  course  of  history  ever 
since  has  been  a  growing  recognition  of  the  rights 
of  labor,  and  in  spite  of  prescription,  of  hereditary 
privilege  and  aristocratic  prejudice,  a  gradual  ele- 
vation of  the  laborer.  From  a  state  of  villenage 
he  advanced  to  one  of  personal  independence,  then 
from  personal  independence  to  the  point  now  at- 
tained of  civil  emancipation,  from  which  the  next 
step,  that  of  social  emancipation,  is  inevitable, 
when  thorough  education  shall  give  the  mechanic 
that  inner  emancipation  which  frees  the  soul  from 
the  bondage  of  circumstance,  that  wide  and  com- 
manding outlook  which  atones  the  inequalities  of 
fortune,  and  that  self-respect  which  compels  the 


THE   GOSPEL   OF  MANUAL  LABOR.      119 

respect  of  mankind.  Social  prejudices  are  not  to 
be  conquered  by  force ;  they  can  only  cease  by 
being  outgrown.  The  prejudice  which  undervalues 
manual  labor  will  cease  wlienever  it  shall  appear 
that  manual  labor  is  entirely  consistent  with  the 
highest  culture. 


IX. 

THE  LOT   OF  THE   CALLED. 

And  Jesus,  icalking  hy  the  sea  of  Galilee,  saw  two 
brethren,  Simon  called  Peter,  and  Andrew  his  brother, 
casting  a  net  into  the  sea :  for  they  were  fishers.  And 
he  saith  unto  them,  Follow  me,  and  I  icill  make  you 
fishers  of  men.  And  they  straightway  left  their  nets, 
and  followed  him.  Matt.  iv.  18-20. 

A  IjL  great  and  permanent  reforms,  especially  all 
•^  ^  religious  movements  that  win  for  themselves 
a  permanent  place  in  the  world,  originate  with 
"  the  people,"  —  I  mean,  with  the  hmnbler  classes, 
the  uncultured  poor.  All  religions  have  had  this 
origin ;  they  have  risen  from  beneath ;  they  have 
struck  their  roots  in  the  lower  strata  of  society, 
and  gathered  to  their  symbols  the  masses  of  the 
people,  before  winning  the  assent  of  the  learned 
and  the  great,  who  at  last  are  dragged  in  in  spite  of 
themselves,  and  swept  away  by  the  overpowering 
current  of  popular  opinion.  Confucius  complained 
that  the  princes  of  his  day  rejected  his  doctrine  ; 
but  the  doctrine  of  Confucius   became  the   State 


THE  LOT  OF  THE   CALLED.  121 

religion  of  China,  and  has  been  so  for  more  than 
two  thousand  years.  Zoroaster  found  an  ally  in 
the  King  of  Iran ;  but  the  Magi  and  the  courtiers 
and  the  men  of  influence  in  the  land  were  leagued 
against  him.  Buddhism  stooped  to  the  vile  and 
despised,  and  won  its  great  triumph  by  its  great 
condescension.  Mohammed  was  spurned  by  the 
pride  of  the  Koreish,  and  found  his  first  disciple 
in  a  slave. 

Of  this  humble  origin  of  wide-spread  religions, 
Christianity  is  the  supreme  instance.  When  Jesus, 
by  private  exercises  of  the  Spirit  and  by  providen- 
tial leadings,  had  become  persuaded  of  his  high 
calling,  and  moved  to  undertake  his  saving  mission, 
he  deemed  it  necessary  to  associate  with  himself 
some  trusty  companions,  to  whom  he  could  impart 
his  mind  and  purpose,  and  who  should  assist  in 
disseminating  his  doctrine.  It  was  a  matter  of 
prime  moment  what  manner  of  persons  should  be 
selected  for  this  office.  The  first  thought  of  an 
ordinary  reformer  would  have  been  to  draw  to 
himself  men  of  high  position  and  commanding 
influence,  to  secure  to  himself  the  interest  and 
prestige  of  rank  and  power.  In  our  da}^,  when  a 
project  is  started  which  aims  at  social  and  moral 
reform,  it  is  judged  expedient  to  gain  over  people 
of  mark,  —  the  accredited  leaders  of  society,  —  and 
to  give  the  new  movement  all  the  authority  which 


122  THE  LOT  OF  THE   CALLED. 

social  distinction  can  secure.  It  appears  that  Jesus 
had  received  overtures  from  men  of  this  stamp,  but 
gave  them  no  encouragement.  When  a  ruler  of 
the  Jews  undertook  to  treat  with  him,  he  told  him 
plainly.  It  is  in  vain  for  you  Pharisees  to  think  you 
can  enter  this  new  kingdom,  which  I  proclaim,  on 
the  strength  of  your  old  position  ;  you  have  got  to 
be  born  again.  Your  aristocratic  traditions  will 
avail  you  nothing  here ;  you  must  throw  aside  all 
that,  forget  all  you  have  learned,  and  begin  anew. 
And  so  he  turned  from  the  leaders  of  the  nation  to 
its  humblest  citizens.  The  first  whom  he  chose  for 
his  associates  in  this  great  work  were  two  fisher- 
men ;  then  two  more  of  the  same  craft ;  then  a 
tax-gatherer ;  and  so  on,  —  obscure  men,  poor, 
unlearned,  rude. 

Why  did  Jesus  select  such  before  all  others  for 
his  disciples  ?  Why  peasants  of  Galilee,  rather 
than  educated  Pharisees  and  Sadducees,  —  mem- 
bers of  the  Council,  the  aristocracy  of  the  land  ? 
He  might  have  had  such  for  his  followers,  had  he 
chosen  to  accept  the  advances  they  made.  Why 
not  such,  —  men  who  by  virtue  of  their  command- 
ing position  would  make  an  impression  on  the  pub- 
lic mind,  and  authorize  a  strong  impression  in 
favor  of  the  new  doctrine,  would  give  it  forth  as 
from  a  height,  that  so,  the  heights  being  gained, 
the  plains  and  valleys  might  be  overawed  and  se- 


THE  LOT  OF  THE   CALLED.  123 

cured  ?  It  is  impossible  to  say  how  much  of  pru- 
dential calculation  there  may  have  been  in  this 
selection.  I  rather  suppose  that  Jesus  followed  a 
divine  instinct  which  taught  him  that  these  rude 
men  were  the  fittest  instruments  for  the  work  as- 
signed to  them.  He  perceived  in  them  something 
which  especially  qualified  them  for  that  vocation. 
Had  the  purpose  of  his  mission  been  a  system  of 
theology  such  as  after-ages  have  extorted  from  the 
gospel,  he  would,  it  is  likely,  have  chosen  men  of 
erudition  and  intellectual  discipline  to  be  its  mis- 
sionaries. Then  scribes  and  Pharisees  would  have 
been  the  fittest  expounders  of  his  doctrine.  But 
this  was  not  the  mission  with  which  his  disciples 
were  charged.  This  was  not  the  object  which 
Christ  had  in  view.  He  did  not  want  teachers  of 
theology,  but  competent  witnesses,  faithful  report- 
ers, —  men  who  were  open  to  receive,  and  likely  to 
deliver  as  they  received,  the  truths  which  he  taught. 
This  was  what  Jesus  required  in  his  disciples  ;  and 
for  this,  Galilean  peasants  were  better  instruments 
than  phylacteried  Rabbins.  They  possessed  one 
quality  at  least  —  the  natural  fruit  of  their  condi- 
tion —  which  the  learned  and  the  rulers  would  have 
lacked,  and  which  was  very  essential  to  constitute 
a  competent  minister  of  the  New  Testament; 
namely,  simplicity,  freedom  from  prejudice  and 
self-conceit.     Had  Rabbins  undertaken  the  charge 


124  THE  LOT  OF  THE   CALLED. 

of  the  gospel,  they  would  have  made  of  it  a  Rabbini- 
cal affair,  would  have  overlaid  it  with  their  tradi- 
tions, would  have  perverted  it  to  uses  and  issues 
very  wide  of  its  original  import.  These  men  had 
no  prepossessions  of  their  own  which  would  color 
or  mar  their  testimony.  They  were  unsophisti- 
cated. If  they  had  much  to  learn,  they  had  com- 
paratively little  to  unlearn.  They  needed  not,  as 
Christ  said  to  Nicodemus,  to  be  born  again  to  for- 
get their  prejudices  ;  they  needed  not  to  become  as 
little  children  before  they  could  see  the  kingdom  of 
God.  They  were  already  in  that  condition ;  they 
possessed  this  qualification  in  perhaps  as  great  a 
degree  as  could  be  expected  of  any  who  were  other- 
wise fit  for  the  work. 

We  see  the  same  thing  in  every  new  manifesta- 
tion of  the  Spirit.  The  most  apprehensive  of  new 
truths  are  they  who  are  least  preoccupied  with 
theories  of  their  own.  And  it  seems,  as  I  said,  to 
be  the  law  of  all  reforms  that  they  originate  with 
the  unlearned,  and  grow,  as  the  plant  grows,  from 
an  obscure  root  in  the  earth,  —  grow  gradually  up 
into  power  and  greatness,  instead  of  descending 
from  the  heights  of  the  world.  Humanly  speaking, 
it  would  have  been  well  if  all  the  fathers  of  the 
Church  had  been  men  of  this  stamp.  We  should 
then  have  had  at  this  day  the  pure  Christianity  of 
Jesus,  instead  of  that  compound   of  dogmas  and 


THE  LOT  OF   THE   CALLED.  125 

speculations,  of  Jewish  and  Gentile  traditions, 
which  has  borne  the  name  and  honors  of  the  gos- 
pel, and  in  which  it  is  so  hard  to  sift  the  wheat 
from  the  chaff.  I  say,  humanly  speaking ;  for 
there  is  another  view  of  this  subject,  —  a  providen- 
tial historical  view,  —  according  to  which  the 'very 
additions  and  foreign  speculations  and  uses  which 
have  gathered  around  the  evangelical  nucleus,  have 
had  their  value  and  fulfilled  their  part  in  the 
scheme  of  Divine  education.  Pure  Christianity  is 
perhaps  too  pure,  too  ethereal,  too  spiritual,  to  act 
as  a  social  organized  power,  to  constitute  a  visible 
Church,  without  that  body  of  extraneous  matter 
which  it  gathers  to  itself  from  the  various  cir- 
cumstances, spheres,  and  minds  amid  which  it  is 
planted ;  as  the  seed  which  is  put  into  the  ground, 
in  order  to  appear  an  organized  body,  must  take  to 
itself  something  which  is  foreign  to  itself  from  the 
earth  and  air  which  surround  it.  The  seed  still 
maintains  its  proper  type,  and  modifies  these  for- 
eign elements  more  than  they  modify  it.  And 
Christianity,  though  somewhat  qualified  by  the  me- 
dium of  ecclesiasticism  in  which  it  works,  on  the 
whole  subordinates  that  medium,  and  makes  it  the 
instrument  of  its  own  peculiar  power.  Indeed,  all 
healthy,  efficient  organism  is  a  compromise  be- 
tween the  ideal  and  the  caricature  of  the  principle 
embodied  in  it. 


126  THE  LOT   OF   THE    CALLED. 

Such  were  the  two  brothers,  Simon  and  Andrew, 
whom  Jesus  summoned  from  their  fishing  to  help 
evangelize  the  world :  "  Follow  me,  and  I  will 
make  you  fishers  of  men."  "And  straightway 
they  left  their  nets,  and  followed  him."  There 
was  no  magic  in  this.  It  is  not  necessary  to 
suppose  that  this  was  the  first  meeting  between 
Jesus  and  these  brethren.  In  all  likelihood  they 
had  often  met  before,  and  were  mutually  ac- 
quainted. Jesus  had  seen  something  in  these  men 
which  marked  them  for  his  own  ;  and  they  had 
known  him  as  a  teacher  and  prophet,  —  had  looked 
to  him,  perhaps,  as  the  promised  Messiah.  There 
is  nothing  wonderful  in  the  readiness  with  which 
they  accepted  the  summons,  "  Follow  me." 

But  what  did  they  understand  by  it  ?  What 
views  and  expectations  did  they  connect  with  it  ? 
I  suppose  they  thought  very  much  as  the  rest  of 
their  countrymen  did  of  the  national  Messiah. 
They  saw  in  him  a  reformer  indeed,  and  one  who 
would  rebuke  the  sins  of  the  people  ;  but  they  saw 
in  him  also  a  potentate  and  prince  who  would  over- 
throw the  foreign  usurper,  and  restore  and  occupy 
the  national  throne.  In  following  him,  they  fol- 
lowed a  victorious  leader,  who  would  not  fail,  when 
he  came  in  his  glory,  to  reward  his  own.  We  shall 
do  them  no  injustice  if  we  suppose  that  they  obeyed 
an  impulse  of  personal  ambition  in  accepting  the 


THE  LOT  OF  THE   CALLED.  127 

call  to  become  fishers  of  men.  Vague  visions  of 
Messianic  prizes  were  floating  before  their  minds. 
When  they  tliought  of  the  goal  of  their  disciple- 
ship  they  clothed  it  in  purple,  and  saw  themselves 
in  imagination  sitting  at  the  right  and  left  of  roy- 
alty. Little  did  they  know  or  suspect  of  the  real 
issues  of  that  future  which  took  such  rosy  promise 
in  their  imagination.  Had  they  dreamed  of  tlie 
doom  which  their  mission  had  in  store  for  them,  — 
the  disappointment  of  their  cherished  hopes,  the 
life  of  persecution  and  the  martyr-death  to  which 
the  Master  was  calling  them,  —  they  would  hardly 
have  been  tempted  to  quit  the  old  fishing-ground, 
and  the  safe  though  humble  profits  of  their  vocation. 
They  would  have  been  as  prompt  to  reject  the  call  as 
they  were  to  accept  it  in  the  light  in  which  they  saw 
it.  They  accepted  it  in  one  sense ;  it  was  inter- 
preted to  them  in  a  very  different  sense :  they  ac- 
cepted it  as  the  earnest  of  future  triumphs ;  it  was 
interpreted  to  them  as  a  martyr's  crown.  And  yet, 
when  the  real  nature  and  result  of  their  calling  was 
revealed  to  them,  they  met  it  without  shrinking. 
With  the  trial  came  the  courage  and  the  strength. 
Step  by  step  each  coming  event  brought  its  own 
preparation  and  support ;  and  they  welcomed  at 
length  the  martyr-death  of  tlie  Christian  confes- 
sion with  the  same  alacrity  with  wliich  they  would 
have  taken  their  places  by  the  side  of  the  con- 


128  THE  LOT  OF   THE   CALLED. 

queror's  throne,  had  such  been  the  lot  appointed 
for  them. 

A  significant  picture  of  human  life  is  set  before 
us  in  this  example ;  significant  lessons  are  taught 
by  it.  Our  condition  is  essentially  that  of  these 
Galileans.  We  begin  our  career  like  them  with 
expectations  which  are  never  to  be  realized  in  the 
way  we  had  fancied,  but  in  a  way  very  different,  if 
at  all.  We  seek  a  kingdom,  how  different  from 
the  true  one  !  Our  kingdom  of  heaven,  —  we  may 
not  call  it  by  that  name,  —  the  good  which  we  seek, 
by  whatever  name  we  call  it,  we  see  postponed  from 
year  to  year.  It  comes  not ;  but  instead  of  it,  comes 
to  patient  continuance  in  well-doing  a  good  which 
we  did  not  seek,  and  could  not  understand  till  it 
came.  Our  expectations  are  not  fulfilled  in  form, 
but  they  are  fulfilled  in  the  spirit  to  all  who  merit 
success.  The  highest  good,  as  we  understand  it, 
that  in  which  all  our  hopes  and  wishes  centre,  is 
the  kingdom  of  heaven  for  us.  Our  life  is  an  ex- 
periment to  find  that  kingdom.  The  young  man 
ruslies  on  the  future  which  tempts  him  with  its 
prizes ;  he  sees  profits,  honors,  social  satisfactions, 
—  external  advantages  of  every  sort.  These  at  first 
are  his  kingdom  of  heaven,  and  these  accordingly 
he  pursues.  God  permits  us  to  indulge  in  these 
pursuits  to  our  heart's  content ;  he  has  placed  no 
caution   at   the  entrance  of   these  paths,  and  all 


THE  LOT  OF  THE   CALLED.  129 

things  lure  us  onward.     We  follow  trustingly  the 
temporal  Messiah  in  hope  of  a  temporal  kingdom. 
We  delude  ourselves  with  a  dream  of  happiness 
which  flies  before  us  as  we  pursue,  and  will  not 
suffer  itself  to  be  clutched.     But  the  pursuit  has 
not  been  vain ;  the  time  spent  has  not  been  lost. 
If  it  has  not  brought  the  satisfaction  we  desired,  it 
has  benefited  us  in  a  way  we  did  not  expect.     It 
has  served  to  educate  us,  to  call  forth  our  powers, 
to  school  our  affections,  to  discipline  our  hearts. 
The  industry  and  intellectual  vigor  to  which  it  has 
trained  us ;  the  habit  it  has  formed  of  seeking  hap- 
piness in  action ;  the  trial  it  has  furnished  to  our 
virtue ;  the  power  of  endurance  it  has  brought  out 
in   us ;   the  lessons  of  patience  and  renunciation 
which  have  come  to  us  from  its  very  failures  and 
disappointments,  —  these  are  the  prizes  which  have 
come  to  us  from  our  pursuit.     They  did  not  enter 
into  our  calculation  when  we  engaged  in  it.     We 
were  tliinking  of  quite  other  things.     We  followed 
a  temporal  Messiah.     It  may  be  we  have  attained 
those  other  things   also,  but  we  have  not   found 
what  we  sought  in  them ;  they  have  not  yielded 
the  looked-for   satisfaction.     It  is  not  from  them 
that  our  peace  has  come.     What  looked  so  tempt- 
ing in  the  distance  has  turned  out  to  be  something 
very  different  when  grasped.    We  may  call  it  ours ; 
but  we  cannot  appropriate  it  with  any  such  fruition 

9 


130  THE  LOT  OF  THE   CALLED. 

as  it  promised  in  the  pursuit.  The  temporal  Mes- 
siah has  disappointed  us ;  but  the  true  Messiah 
has  been  revealed.  The  kingdom  which  we  had  in 
our  minds  at  the  outset  has  failed.  It  never  ex- 
isted but  in  our  imagination ;  but  instead  thereof, 
an  entrance  has  been  administered  to  us  into  an- 
other and  better  kingdom,  —  a  kingdom  of  enlarged 
insight  and  ripe  experience,  of  self-command  and 
kind  affections,  of  patience  and  of  peace. 

The  calling  of  these  fishermen  teaches  that  the 
life  of  the  privileged,  of  the  eminent,  of  those  who 
are  called  in  a  special  sense,  is  not  a  happy  life, 
as  happiness  is  commonly  understood.  It  is  not 
a  life  of  ease,  but  of  hardship.  Those  who  are 
called  to  power  and  honor  are  called  to  toil  and 
struggle.  The  greater  our  privileges,  the  harder 
our  lot. 

No  doubt  these  fishermen  seemed  to  themselves, 
and  were  thought  by  their  countrymen,  to  be  pe- 
culiarly favored  in  being  made  the  intimate  com- 
panions of  him  who  was  expected  to  restore  the 
kingdom  to  Israel.  They  were  so,  indeed,  but  not 
in  the  way  which  they  had  conceived.  What 
seemed  to  them  an  omen  of  dignity  and  splendor, 
proved  to  be  the  herald  of  hardship  and  suffering. 
We  are  apt  to  look  upon  distinction  as  so  much 
enjoyment.  We  think  tlie  most  eminent,  the  high- 
est-placed, the  loudest-called,  to  be  the   happiest. 


THE  LOT  OF   THE   CALLED.  131 

They  are  so  in  one  sense ;  since  the  highest  hap- 
piness for  man  is  the  most  thorough  education  and 
the  most  intense  action  of  his  powers,  the  most 
complete  development  of  all  that  is  in  him.  But 
if  happiness  means  enjoyment,  then  eminence,  so 
far  from  being  synonymous  with  happiness,  is  sy- 
nonymous with  sorrow.  For  every  privilege  which 
God  confers,  he  imposes  a  corresponding  burden 
of  care  and  toil.  The  higher  we  ascend  in  the 
scale  of  being,  the  more  life  ceases  to  be  enjoy- 
ment, the  more  difficult  it  becomes,  the  more  of 
trial  and  of  conflict  it  involves. 

Happiness  is  the  property  of  children,  the  gift 
of  God's  love  to  that  period  of  life,  but  not  the  des- 
tination of  man.  The  destination  of  man  is  to 
labor  and  endure,  to  strive  and  produce.  The 
higher  his  position,  and  the  greater  his  privileges, 
and  the  more  distinguished  his  endowments,  the 
more  apparent  this  destination  becomes,  the  more 
sensibly  it  is  felt,  the  more  certainly  it  fulfils  it- 
self. It  is  written  :  "  All  dignity  is  painful.  For 
the  son  of  man  there  is  no  crown,  whether  well 
worn  or  ill  worn,  but  is  a  crown  of  thorns." 

Who  have  been  the  most  eminent  in  the  world's 
annals,  —  the  heroes  of  history?  We  find  them, 
for  the  most  part,  among  the  great  sufferers  of 
history ;  and  the  more  we  learn  of  their  private 
life,  the  more  we   find  it  to  have   been  a  life  of 


132  THE  LOT  OF   THE   CALLED. 

conflict  and  sorrow.  Their  private  confessions, 
^here  they  have  come  down  to  us,  show  them  to 
have  been  often  weary  of  life,  and  to  have  felt 
their  burden  greater  than  they  could  bear.  Even 
from  the  strong  and  high-hearted  Luther  escapes 
not  unfrequently  the  sigh  for  the  rest  of  the  grave. 
The  hero  of  our  own  history,  the  most  honored  of 
our  countrymen,  is  said  never  to  have  smiled  dur- 
ing all  the  period  of  the  war  which  established  our 
national  independence. 

Need  I  remind  you  how  strikingly  this  trait  was 
exemplified  in  Him  who  stands  in  our  grateful  and 
affectionate  reverence  for  all  that  is  sublimest,  as 
well  as  for  all  that  is  holiest,  in  man  ?  An  immor- 
tal sadness  clings  inseparably  to  his  idea.  All  the 
representations  of  him,  in  the  paintings  of  the 
old  masters,  show  how  universal  the  impression, 
perhaps  we  sliould  say  the  tradition,  of  this  trait. 
And  so  intimately  is  this  sadness  associated  with 
the  idea  of  Christ,  that  Christianity  has  been 
termed,  by  those  who  have  reflected  most  pro- 
foundly on  its  spirit,  "  the  worship  of  sorrow,"  as 
exhibiting  one  who  devoted  himself  to  privation 
and  suffering  and  death  in  the  service  of  man,  as 
the  price  of  man's  highest  and  eternal  good ;  and 
as  calling  on  the  followers  of  Christ  to  follow  him 
in  this  also,  —  willing,  if  need  be,  to  suffer  with 
him,  that  so  they  may  reign  with  him ;   "  bearing 


THE  LOT  OF   THE   CALLED.  133 

about  in  the  body  the  dying  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  that 
the  life  also  of  Jesus  might  be  made  manifest"  in 
them ;  seeking  their  life,  not  in  comfort  and  ease, 
but  in  toil  and  sacrifice.  This  is  the  doctrine  of 
Christianity,  —  a  doctrine  for  the  most  part  peculiar 
to  Christianity.  For  though  traces  of  it,  as  of  all 
great  truths,  may  be  found  in  the  ancient  philoso- 
phies, yet  the  spirit  of  those  philosophies,  on  the 
whole,  was  eudaemonism,  was  Epicurean ;  it  made 
happiness  the  highest  good.  And  this,  I  appre- 
hend, whatever  their  theory,  is  still  the  practi- 
cal philosophy  of  the  greater  part  of  mankind, — 
not  the  worship  of  sorrow,  but  the  worship  of 
enjoyment. 

Enjoyment  is  the  childish  ideal  of  good.  It  is 
this  that  floats  before  the  mind  at  the  entrance  of 
life,  and  with  many  during  its  entire  course.  Even 
where  ambition  prompts  to  unwearied  exertion,  and 
persuades  renunciation  of  present  ease  and  sensual 
satisfactions  for  honors  and  possessions  in  the  dis- 
tance, which  seem  more  desirable  than  present 
enjoyment,  it  is  still  enjoyment  in  one  shape  or 
another  which  they  pursue.  It  is  still  some  phan- 
tom of  future  independence  and  ease,  or  of  future 
mark  and  consequence,  which  beckons  them  on, 
and  which  renders  endurable  the  sacrifices  it  de- 
mands. And  not  only  does  worldly  ambition  look 
to  this  end,  but  how  often  is  religion  itself  de- 


134  TEE  LOT  OF  THE   CALLED. 

graded  to  a  worship  of  enjoyment  by  the  repre- 
sentations which  are  made  of  its  ends,  and  the 
motives  by  which  its  obligations  are  urged ;  enjoy- 
ment with  which  some  future  state  is  to  reward 
the  toils  and  sacrifices  of  this !  Men  are  taught 
to  worship  enjoyment  under  the  name  of  heaven ; 
and  the  popular  doctrine  has  been,  that,  after 
suffering  the  inconveniences  of  righteousness  in 
this  present  life,  we  are  to  take  our  ease  in  the 
life  to  come. 

Long  time  is  required  to  correct  this  false  ideal 
in  religion  and  in  all  the  pursuits  of  life,  and  to 
teach  us  that  enjoyment  is  only  a  phantom  with 
which  God  permits  us  to  delude  ourselves  for 
a  while,  until  we  learn  the  deeper  meaning  and  use 
of  life,  —  until  we  learn  that  labor  is  the  end  of 
labor ;  that  its  use  is  to  educate  us  for  further  and 
endless  toil ;  that  when  we  have  done  well,  the 
reward  of  well-doing  is  the  power  and  the  privilege 
of  doing  better ;  having  been  faithful  in  few  things, 
to  be  made  rulers  over  many ;  not  with  additional 
comforts  and  ease,  but  with  additional  responsi- 
bilities, care,  and  toil.  If  we  have  been  sharply 
tried,  and  have  borne  our  trials  well,  the  rew^ard 
is  new  trials,  which  multiply  so  long  as  we  are 
able  to  bear. 

God  teaches  all  this  by  gradual  discipline,  if  we 
are  open  to  instruction.     He  has  his  ends  with  us 


THE  LOT  OF   THE   CALLED.  135 

quite  distinct  from  our  own.  We  set  out  with  a 
theory  which  we  have  to  unlearn ;  we  amuse  our- 
selves with  plans  which  we  have  to  renounce.  We 
mean  to  labor  for  a  given  time,  and  then  take  our 
rest.  But  God  does  not  mean  that  we  should  rest 
so  long  as  we  are  capable  of  labor.  He  keeps  us 
at  work;  and  the  more  we  do,  the  more  he  lays 
upon  us.  If  we  have  toiled  for  money,  he  does  not 
permit  us  to  sit  quietly  down  and  enjoy  our  gains, 
but  keeps  us  at  work  as  his  stewards,  or  takes  our 
riches  from  us  that  we  may  begin  our  work  anew. 
If  we  labor  too  covetously,  he  makes  the  care  of 
money  at  once  our  punishment  and  his  treasurer. 
If  we  have  done  well,  and  earned  credit  in  any 
undertaking,  he  does  not  permit  us  to  sleep  upon 
our  laurels,  but  goads  us  on  to  new  undertakings. 
If  he  sees  in  us  a  patient,  brave,  and  self-sacrificing 
spirit,  he  does  not  afflict  us  once  and  then  dismiss 
us,  but  heaps  trial  upon  trial.  At  every  turn  he 
baffles  and  disappoints  us,  and  yet  wrings  from  us 
at  last  the  strange  confession,  "Though  he  slay 
me,  yet  will  I  trust  in  him , "  and,  correcting  our 
false  ideal,  teaches  us  to  find  in  brave  and  efficient 
service  the  kingdom  of  heaven,  which  we  once 
sought  in  selfish  enjoyment;  instead  of  getting 
the  uttermost,  to  seek  our  satisfaction  in  doing 
our  best. 

So  it  fell  out  with  these  poor  fishermen,  who  left 


136  THE  LOT  OF  THE   CALLED, 

their  nets  to  follow  the  call  of  Jesus,  not  knowing 
whither  they  went.  They  embraced  that  call  with 
buoyant  heart  and  high  hopes,  seeing  conquest  and 
glory  and  golden  crowns  in  the  distance,  and  find- 
ing at  every  step  disappointment,  privation,  dan- 
ger, and  ending  with  a  martyr-death.  Assuredly 
the  life  of  the  called  is  not  a  happy  life,  in  the 
ordinary  sense  of  the  term.  The  greater  our  priv- 
ileges, the  harder  our  lot.  The  more  we  have  and 
can,  the  more  we  are  called  to  do  and  to  bear. 

But  courage!  The  God  who  appoints  the  disci- 
pline and  the  task  is  the  same  God  who  worketh  in 
us  to  will  and  to  do.  The  internal  support  is 
equal  to  the  outward  pressure ;  and  as  our  day, 
so  is  our  strength.  Had  Andrew  and  Peter  fore- 
seen the  trials  in  store  for  them,  how  would  they 
have  spurned  the  Master's  call,  and  shrunk  with 
terror  from  such  a  life !  But  they  did  not  shrink 
when  the  trials  came ;  they  found  the  strength 
where  they  found  the  call.  And  though  one  of 
them,  in  a  moment  of  weakness,  was  tempted  to 
deny  his  discipleship,  he  amply  atoned  for  that 
weakness  by  his  subsequent  life,  and,  according 
to  tradition,  by  his  heroic  death.  Wherever  there 
is  a  call  to  do  or  to  bear,  there  is  strength  cor- 
responding to  that  call ;  and  what  seemed  impos- 
sible once,  will  seem  easy  and  natural  as  we  grow 
up  to  it  by  the   gradual   discipline   of  life.     "  It 


THE  LOT  OF   THE   CALLED.  137 

would  not  do  for  me  to  enlist,"  said  a  young  man 
of  feeble  health  and  delicate  organization,  at  the 
breaking  out  of  the  war,  "  I  should  prove  a  coward 
on  the  field  of  battle."  But  he  did  enlist,  impelled 
by  the  irresistible  call  of  patriotism,  and  showed 
himself,  when  the  trial  came,  as  brave  as  any  vet- 
eran on  the  field ;  and  cheerfully,  in  the  supreme 
hour,  paid  the  tribute  of  his  life  to  the  sacred 
cause  he  had  espoused. 

The  life  of  the  called  is  not  a  happy  life,  if  hap- 
piness consists  in  selfish  enjoyment;  nevertheless, 
it  is  a  blessed  life,  if  blessedness  consists  in  con- 
sciously filling  a  place  in  the  army  of  the  faithful, 
and  the  fellowship  of  that  spirit  which  animates 
all  the  brave  and  good.  The  limits  of  enjoyment 
are  soon  reached,  the  season  of  enjoyment  is  soon 
past;  but  life  and  blessedness  have  no  bounds. 
The  time  is  near  when  the  having  possessed  a  little 
more  or  a  little  less  of  this  world's  goods,  the  hav- 
ing experienced  a  little  more  or  a  little  less  of 
earthly  delights,  will  be  no  longer  matter  of  pleas- 
ure or  regret.  But  the  consciousness  of  having  paid 
with  our  best  for  values  received,  of  having  borne 
our  share  of  the  common  burden,  and  contributed 
something  to  the  general  good,  will  be  rich  com- 
pensation in  view  of  all  the  past,  and  ample  sup- 
port in  view  of  all  the  future ;  will  be  a  satisfac- 
tion which  we  can  take  with  us  to  our  final  rest. 


138  THE  LOT  OF   THE   CALLED. 

assured  that  the  sundering  of  soul  and  body  cannot 
wrest  this  treasure  from  our  life,  and  that  wher- 
ever, in  the  Divine  economy,  our  waking  may  be, 
it  will  find  us  sound  and  furnished  and  girt  and 
ready  for  the  new  career. 


X. 


THE    BAPTIST    AND    THE     CHEIST  ;     OR 
REFOEMERS   AND   HUMANITY. 

He  must  increase,  hut  I  must  decrease. 

John  iii.  30. 

TOHN,  the  Baptist,  had  awakened  in  his  country- 
men  an  immense  expectation  of  a  greater  than 
himself,  about  to  appear,  whose  perfect  work  would 
eclipse  his  own  initiatory  doings,  "  the  latchet  of 
whose  shoes,"  he  said,  "  I  am  not  worthy  to  un- 
loose." He  may  be  in  the  midst  of  us, — that  great 
Unknown ;  for  who  knows  the  possibilities  of  his 
own  sphere  ?  "  There  standeth  one  among  you, 
whom  ye  know  not ;  he  it  is,  who  coming  after 
me  is  preferred  before  me."  In  accordance  with 
this  prediction,  there  appeared  one  day,  among 
those  who  flocked  to  the  baptism  of  John,  a  youth 
on  whose  radiant  brow  the  manifest  spirit  of  God 
had  set  its  seal.  The  heavenly  signature  did  not 
escape  the  penetrating  eye  of  the  Baptist.  He 
looked  upon  this  new-comer,  and  recognized  in  his 
kinsman  Jesus  the  greater  than  himself  who  was 


140       THE  BAPTIST  AND   THE   CHRIST; 

to  come.  "  This  is  he  of  whom  I  said,  After  me 
Cometh  a  man  which  is  preferred  before  me,  for 
he  was  before  me." 

Not  many  days  after  there  came  a  message  : 
"  Rabbi,  he  that  was  with  thee  beyond  Jordan,  to 
whom  thou  barest  witness,  behold,  the  same  bap- 
tizeth,  and  all  men  come  to  him."  In  a  mind 
less  pure  and  disinterested  than  John's,  this  an- 
nouncement might  have  kindled  a  spark  of  jeal- 
ousy, though  it  did  but  verify  his  own  prediction. 
He,  the  greatest  prophet  since  the  great  Elijah, 
saw  himself  already  eclipsed  and  receding  into  the 
shadow  of  a  name.  Young  as  he  was,  he  had  had 
his  day.  Another  coming  after  him  was  preferred 
before  him.  But  John  saw  in  this  the  divine  au- 
thentication of  his  own  mission.  He  knew  that  no 
vulgar  caprice,  but  a  higher  claim,  had  caused  this 
diversion  of  tlie  popular  favor.  Grandly,  as  became 
his  loyal  nature,  he  submitted  to  be  outdone.  "  A 
man  can  receive  nothing,  except  it  be  given  him 
from  heaven.  .  .  .  He  that  hath  the  bride  [that  is, 
the  popular  consent]  is  the  bridegroom  :  but  the 
friend  of  the  bridegroom,  which  standeth  and  hear- 
etli  him,  rejoiceth  greatly  because  of  the  bride- 
groom's voice :  this  my  joy  therefore  is  fulfilled. 
He  must  increase,  but  I  must  decrease." 

Of  all  the  brave  words  recorded  of  John  the  Bap- 
tist there   are   none    braver   than   these.      There 


OR  REFORMERS  AND  HUMANITY.       141 

are  plenty  of  reformers  who  can  raise  their  voice 
against  the  corruptions  and  evil-doers  of  their 
time ;  how  rare  the  reformer  who  knows  his  place, 
his  limitations,  and  is  willing  to  subside  when  his 
work  is  done,  content  to  be  the  waiting  paranymph 
of  the  ever-coming  eternal  bridegroom  !  The  Bap- 
tist and  the  Christ !  There  are  always  these  two 
parties  and  powers  in  the  world,  —  the  aggressive 
reformer  and  the  Son  of  Man ;  the  uncompromising 
radical  who  would  lay  the  axe  to  the  root  of  the 
tree,  and  the  spirit  of  humanity  latent  in  all  men, 
continually  advancing,  as  the  years  roll  by,  toward 
the  full  stature  of  a  perfect  man,  —  the  stature  of 
"  the  fulness  of  Christ."  This  must  increase  ;  that 
must  decrease.  They  differ  in  their  ideals,  and 
they  differ  in  their  methods.  The  reformer's  is 
non-conformity,  everlasting  protest  against  the 
world  and  its  ways,  asceticism  with  its  rigors  and 
its  frown.  The  Christ's  ideal  is  the  life  of  society, 
with  its  kindly  sympathies  and  reciprocities,  its 
genial  fellowships  and  its  sweet  humanities,  its 
obligations  and  responsibilities,  its  marriage  feasts 
and  its  houses  of  mourning,  its  Canas  and  its 
Bethanies,  its  graces  and  its  burdens,  its  hilarities 
and  its  cross.  The  Baptist's  ideal  seduced  not  a 
few  of  the  choicest  spirits  of  the  early  Church.  It 
drew  Christendom  into  the  wilderness,  and  threat- 
ened for  a  while  to  supplant  the  genuine  gospel 


142        THE  BAPTIST  AND   THE   CHRIST; 

with  the  mystic  glooms  of  Indian  devotion.  Sin- 
cere as  it  was  in  the  purpose  and  practice  of  the 
early  Christians,  sublime  as  it  was  in  its  stern  pro- 
test against  the  vices  of  a  pampered,  self-indulgent 
world,  asceticism  is  not  the  true  ideal  of  life. 

The  ideal  Christian  is  man  in  society,  freely 
mingling  with  the  world,  partaking  in  its  innocent 
uses  while  contending  against  the  bad  ;  bearing  its 
burdens,  encountering  its  temptations  and  overcom- 
ing them,  and  honoring  its  just  demands.  This 
is  the  life  that  best  promotes  in  the  end  the  moral 
welfare  of  society.  The  life  of  dissent  may  be  freer 
from  temptation,  but  it  is  less  fruitful.  That  must 
decrease.  The  voice  in  the  wilderness  passes,  but 
humanity  endures.  The  reformer's  mission  is 
transient ;  he  fulfils  his  course,  utters  his  protest, 
and  disappears  in  the  stream  of  time.  Advancing 
humanity  renders  back  the  protest  in  due  season, 
accepts  what  truth  there  is  in  it,  discarding  what 
is  false,  and  embodies  it  in  that  ever-progressing 
incarnation  of  divine  ideas  which  constitutes  the 
history  within  the  history  of  human  kind. 

They  differ  in  their  methods.  The  aggressive 
reformer  proceeds  by  agitation.  He  strives  and 
cries,  he  agonizes,  he  plots  and  he  schemes,  calls 
conventions,  canvasses  votes,  intrigues,  proscribes, 
legislates.  Some  good,  no  doubt,  is  accomplished 
in  this  way.     Agitation  is  good  in  its  measure  and 


OR  REFORMERS  AND  HUMANITY.      I43 

place,  but  not  for  all  things  and  times.  It  is  not 
the  method  which  permanently  benefits  society. 
Not  agitation,  but  attraction,  is  the  force  that 
finally  and  forever  redeems  the  world.  All  thor- 
ough and  lasting  reforms  are  due  to  the  strong 
attraction  of  individual  character ;  and  character 
acts  by  simply  being.  It  needs  no  organ,  but  its 
own  victorious  nature.  It  reforms  evil  as  the  sun 
in  the  fable  slew  the  dragon,  by  the  glance  of 
its  eye,  as  Paul  said  Christ  would  destroy  the 
"  man  of  sin  "  by  "  the  brightness  of  his  coming." 
Other  agencies  may  stop  the  present  demonstra- 
tions ;  but  they  do  not  reach  the  root  of  the  evil, 
they  do  not  reach  the  heart.  The  pressure  of 
opinion,  coalition,  legislation,  may  hold  vice  in 
check,  but  it  cannot  turn  the  bitter  waters  into 
sweet.  No  external  pressure  can  do  this,  but  only 
personal  influence,  the  flowing  into  us  of  another's 
soul.  Interrogate  your  own  experience.  What 
have  been  the  agencies  by  which  your  moral  nature 
has  been  most  quickened  and  fructified  ?  They 
have  not  been  palpable  and  loud,  not  outward  com- 
pulsion, but  the  irresistible  attraction  of  some  char- 
acter whose  manifestations  you  have  witnessed,  some 
relative  or  friend  or  public  functionary  whom  you 
respected  and  loved.  From  such  sources  as  these 
our  healing  has  come,  and  not  from  those  who  seek 
by  force  to  bring  us  into  their  way  and  rule. 


144       THE  BAPTIST  AND   THE   CHRIST; 

The  mightiest  forces  that  we  know,  forces  that 
sway  the  universe,  are  shod  with  silence.  There  is 
no  speech  nor  cry ;  their  voice  is  not  heard.  No 
sound  accompanies  the  undulations  of  the  light 
which  reaches  the  bounds  of  being.  The  snow 
and  the  rain  fall  silently  on  the  waiting  earth,  and 
ripen  the  harvests  that  feed  mankind  ;  the  earth 
herself,  a  quiet  wayfarer,  awakes  no  echoes  on  her 
starry  road.  Such  a  force  is  character,  of  a  piece 
with  the  light  and  the  rain  and  the  revolving  year. 
What  we  call  Christianity,  apart  from  its  politics 
and  creeds,  is  but  the  character  of  Jesus  as  pre- 
sented in  his  life ;  that  immortal  life  which  has 
written  itself  with  indelible  scriptures  on  the 
heart  of  the  world,  —  a  continuous  galvanic  cur- 
rent from  that  divine,  inexhaustible  battery.  The 
Christian  Church  with  all  its  ages  is  the  self- 
perpetuating  power  of  a  human  example. 

The  impression  of  that  example  on  Jesus'  con- 
temporaries is  indicated  by  certain  anecdotes 
which  make  what  is  called  his  biography.  These 
anecdotes  are  not  his  life,  but  only  sparks  struck 
out  by  its  contact  with  the  world.  They  do  not 
explain  the  influence  of  his  spirit  on  human  so- 
ciety ;  they  only  illustrate  it.  The  recorded  acts  are 
not  the  ministry  of  Christ ;  they  are  only  its  signs. 
The  immediate  results  of  his  action  were  tran- 
sient.   The  eyes  of  the  blind  which  he  opened,  soon 


OR  REFORMERS  AND  HUMANITY.       145 

closed  to  open  no  more  on  the  scenes  of  this  world ; 
the  feet  of  the  lame  whom  he  made  to  walk,  soon 
stumbled  on  "  the  dark  mountains  ; "  the  dying 
w^hom  he  snatched  from  the  grave  were  soon  re- 
manded to  the  sleep  of  death  ;  but  the  spirit  of 
divine  beneficence  displayed  in  those  works  re- 
mains. This  must  increase,  and  glorify  itself  with 
ever-increasing  sway. 

It  is  not  what  we  do,  but  the  spirit  with  which 
we  do  it,  that  tells.  The  immediate  results  of  all 
our  action  are  inconsiderable.  The  glory  of  all 
human  achievements  is  as  the  flower  of  the  grass ; 
"  the  wind  passeth  over  it,  and  it  is  gone."  The 
spirit  with  which  we  work  alone  endures.  That  lives 
when  our  work  is  done.  Believe  in  the  silent  force 
of  character,  in  the  indestructible  efficacy  of  a  life 
spent  in  the  daily  discharge  of  unnoticed  offices  of 
love,  —  not  unnoticed  :  God  giveth  his  angels  charge 
of  such ;  the  heavenly  hosts  are  commissioned  to 
gather  up  that  wayside  seed,  and  to  propagate  it 
forever  and  forever. 

The  professed  reformers  have  a  mission  to 
destroy,  but  not  to  build  up.  They  may  by  the 
blessing  of  God  abate  existing  evils,  but  they  can- 
not replace  them  with  positive  good.  The  good,  if 
it  come,  must  be  a  product  of  humanity  flowering 
in  its  season  to  meet  this  want.  This  is  not  said 
by  way  of  disparagement,  but  only  as  defining  the 

10 


146        THE  BAPTIST  AND    THE   CHRIST; 

work  of  reform.  God  knows  how  essential  and 
divine  a  thing  it  is  to  destroy  the  bud,  to  bruise 
but  one  head  of  the  old  hydra  that  has  wound  itself 
with  a  ninefold  coil  about  the  heart  of  the  world. 
Still,  that  work  is  negative,  and  therefore  transient. 
The  serpent  can  be  finally  crushed  only  by  the 
positive  forces  of  a  higher  civilization,  —  a  civiliza- 
tion which  has  drunk  more  deeply  of  the  blood  of 
Christ.  As  the  coming  of  the  first  man  displaced 
the  saurian  monsters  of  the  old  creation,  so  the 
ever-new  coming  of  the  second  man  will  in  due 
time  suppress  the  moral  monsters  of  the  human 
world.  No  aggressive  reform,  but  only  redeeming 
love,  can  replace  with  new  verdure  and  a  better 
harvest  the  desolation  they  have  made. 

Aggressive  reform  must  decrease  because  of  the 
impurities  it  inevitably  contracts  in  the  prosecu- 
tion of  its  ends.  Reform  in  its  first  stage  is  simply 
protest  against  some  prevalent  mischief  or  vice ;  a 
voice  in  the  wilderness  crying,  "  Repent ! "  to  all 
who  are  guilty  in  that  kind.  So  long  as  it  abides 
in  that  first  stage  it  is  pure  and  purifying.  These 
early  reformers  are  true  sons  of  God.  Happy  are 
they  who  hear  the  word  and  receive  it.  But  there 
follows  often  a  second  stage  in  which  reform  has 
parted  with  something  of  its  original  purity,  and 
got  itself  mixed  with  foreign  elements.  The  re- 
former  quits   his   station   in   the  wilderness,  and 


OR   REFORMERS  AND  HUMANITY.       147 

rallies  his  forces  in  organized  bodies,  hoping  by 
that  means  to  secure  the  more  rapid  suppression 
of  the  evil  he  condemns.  Organization  for  moral 
purposes  may  sometimes  be  expedient,  but  reform 
loses  something  of  its  simplicity  thereby.  The  re- 
former is  no  longer  single-minded  ;  he  has  a  second 
object  beside  his  original  one, — namely,  the  strength 
and  success  of  his  party.  To  this  he  must  some- 
times sacrifice  his  individual  convictions,  giving 
implied  sanction  to  measures  he  does  not  approve, 
that  the  union  and  integrity  of  the  party  may  not 
suffer  by  his  dissent.  He  no  longer  trusts  in  the 
power  of  simple  truth,  but  relies  on  numerical 
force.  He  would  conquer  by  the  multitude  of 
voices,  instead  of  persuading  by  the  influence  of 
example.  He  contends  more  for  victory  than  for 
truth. 

When  the  organization  takes  a  political  direction 
and  presents  itself  as  a  party  at  the  polls,  reform 
undergoes  still  further  diminution  of  its  moral 
character.  Its  weapons  have  become  carnal;  the 
political  element  absorbs  the  moral.  Moral  aims 
are  confounded  with  political  ends  and  subordi- 
nated to  them  ;  philanthropic  zeal  is  merged  in  the 
struggle  for  power  political.  Suppose  the  party 
with  which  the  reformers  have  allied  themselves 
to  succeed  in  carrying  the  popular  vote,  and  secur- 
ing as  legislators    and  magistrates  the  professed 


148       THE  BAPTIST  AND   THE   CHRIST; 

representatives  of  their  cause.  How  far  will  that 
success  effect  the  abolition  of  the  evil  to  be  re- 
formed ?  Legislation  may  control  the  means  of 
vicious  indulgence.  It  may  make  illicit  what  be- 
fore was  legal.  But  legislation  can  only  deal  with 
what  is  overt;  it  cannot  reach  the  private  home, 
still  less  the  private  soul.  The  evil  fruit  it  may 
for  the  time  suppress,  but  the  corrupt  tree  remains. 
I  do  not  say  that  suppression  of  the  overt  evil  is 
not  a  good  work,  or  that  the  reform  which  seeks 
that  suppression  is  not  needed,  but  only  that  it 
works  no  radical  cure.  Make  the  tree  good  if  you 
would  have  good  fruit ;  abolish  the  demand  for 
vicious  indulgence,  if  you  would  once  for  all  cut 
off  the  supply :  there  is  no  other  way. 

The  world  is  not  permanently  reformed  by  legis- 
lation. Pliilanthropists  may  wail  over  it,  politi- 
cians may  tug  at  it  and  tinker  it ;  but  history  will 
have  its  course.  It  obeys  the  law  impressed  upon 
it  by  divine  rule  ;  and  only  the  gradual  unfolding  of 
the  good  seed  which  God  originally  implanted  in 
the  human  breast,  and  has  nourished  by  successive 
revelations  of  the  true  and  the  right,  will  effectu- 
ally reform  society.  "He  must  increase."  Every 
aspiration  which  has  the  well-being  of  man  for  its 
object,  every  dream  of  philanthropy,  is  bound  to 
become  a  reality  in  the  fulness  of  time.  There  is 
no   good    which    reform    has   contended    for  tliat 


OR   REFORMERS  AND  HUMANITY.       I49 

time  and  advancing  humanity  will  not  one  day 
render  to  our  patient  hope.  The  strong  years  are 
laboring  for  us  and  with  us.  They  will  not  hurry 
and  they  will  not  stay.  They  keep  the  seed  en- 
trusted to  them ;  they  keep  it  and  they  rear  it,  and 
their  harvests  fail  not. 

"  1  must  decrease."  Reformers  pass  ;  humanity 
remains.  With  Christ  for  its  head  and  God  for 
its  method  and  its  goal,  it  must  increase  forever. 
Transcending  and  subordinating  all  partial  re- 
forms, it  takes  from  each  whatever  it  can  appropri- 
ate, and  casts  aside  what  is  incompatible.  Greater 
than  all  individuals  however  gifted,  purer  than  all 
cultures  however  refined,  it  receives  into  itself  the 
contributions  of  every  land  and  time.  It  feeds  it- 
self with  streams  from  east  and  west  and  north 
and  south,  and  grows  stronger  and  purer  the  far- 
ther it  flows.  Science  cannot  trace  its  beginning, 
nor  predict  its  issues  ;  but  faith  knows  that  a  spirit 
greater  than  itself  is  co-present  to  every  stage  of  its 
course,  and  is  guiding  it  by  infallible  methods  to 
immortal  ends. 


XI. 

THE  BROAD  CHURCH. 

And  they  shall  come  from  the  east,  and  from  the 
west,  and  from  the  north,  and  from  the  south,  and  shall 
sit  down  in  the  kingdom  of  God.  Luke  xiii.  29. 

TT  7E  all  know  how  utterly  and  astonishingly 
^  ^  this  prediction  was  verified  in  the  first  cen- 
turies of  the  Christian  Church,  which  is  what  is 
here  meant  by  the  kingdom  of  God.  Fifty  days 
after  the  death  of  Christ,  in  whose  tomb  it  was 
seemingly  extinct,  and  whose  resurrection  was 
then  the  private  persuasion  of  a  few  friends,  the 
soul  of  that  kingdom  burst  forth  again  with  irre- 
pressible vehemence  at  Jerusalem.  It  swept  the 
city  with  a  rushing  mighty  wind  from  heaven,  and 
a  demonstration  of  fiery  tongues,  inaugurating  the 
new  heavens  and  the  new  earth  of  the  Christian 
ages.  Three  thousand  souls  sat  down  in  the 
kingdom  by  invitation  of  Peter  that  day.  East, 
west,  north,  and  south  were  all  represented.  For 
there  were  dwelling  at  Jerusalem  at  that  time 
Jewish    proselytes   "out    of    every   nation   under 


THE  BROAD   CHURCH.  151 

heaven,"  providentially  gathered  to  the  feast  of 
the  tribes,  —  Parthians,  Medes,  Elamites,  from  the 
east ;  people  from  the  parts  of  Libya  about  Cyrene, 
strangers  of  Rome,  Cappadocians,  Phrygians,  from 
the  west  and  the  north  ;  and  dwellers  in  Mesopota- 
mia from  the  south.  When  this  rushing  mighty 
wind  struck  them  it  lodged  a  seed  of  the  kingdom 
in  their  souls,  which  they  took  with  them  to  their 
proper  homes,  and  sowed  in  their  several  lands, 
where  it  grew  to  be  a  heavenly  plantation,  a  spir- 
itual oasis  amid  the  perishing  polytheisms  of 
the  Empire  and  the  droning  synagogues  of  the 
Dispersion. 

These  plantations  were  replenished  and  rein- 
forced from  time  to  time  by  missionaries,  apostolic 
and  other,  from  the  old  centre  and  the  neighbor 
lands.  Paul  went  to  Arabia  and  Asia  Minor  and 
Greece  and  Italy,  some  say  to  Spain,  —  to  what 
was  then  the  uttermost  vers-e  of  the  West. 
Thomas,  according  to  tradition,  went  to  the  utter- 
most verge  of  the  East.  Philip,  by  mediation  of 
a  household  officer  of  the  Queen  of  Meroe,  whom 
he  baptized  on  the  road  to  Gaza,  planted  the  word 
far  down  in  the  South.  Others,  most  likely  dis- 
ciples of  Paul,  carried  it  to  Britain,  high  up  in  the 
North.  The  plantations  grew,  and  flourished,  and 
spread.  The  Empire  writhed  under  them,  and 
made  desperate  efforts  to  throw  them  off ;  and  no 


152  THE  BROAD   CHURCH. 

wonder,  for  they  rode  the  Empire  as  a  green  and 
histy  parasite  rides  some  huge  bole  of  a  thousand 
rings,  the  monarch  of  the  forest,  which,  vast  and 
robust  as  it  is,  must  finally  succumb  to  the  stealthy 
encroachment. 

The  plantations  grew  and  spread  till  they  ran 
together  into  a  kingdom  of  God,  which  covered  the 
earth,  the  known  and  travelled  earth,  of  that  time. 
Cosmas,  the  great  navigator  of  the  sixth  century, 
found  Christianity  established  in  Malabar ;  he 
found  Christian  churches  and  bishops  in  Ceylon, 
whose  "  spicy  breezes "  had  pleaded,  and  not  in 
vain,  with  the  saints  aforetime,  as  they  pleaded  in 
saintly  Heber's  day,  for  missionary  effort.  Al- 
ready from  uttermost  China,  jealous  then  as  now 
of  her  own  productions,  the  Emperor  Justinian 
had  received,  through  Christian  missionaries,  the 
secret  of  the  silkworm ;  and  thus,  as  sceptic  Gib- 
bon confesses,  a  Christian  mission  had  accom- 
plished what  secular  commerce  had  labored  in  vain 
to  effect,  —  the  introduction  of  the  silk  culture  into 
Europe.  There  were  Christians  at  the  mouth  of 
the  Ganges,  Christians  in  "  distant  Aden,"  Chris- 
tians in  Ormuz  and  in  Abyssinia.  Saracen  hordes 
from  the  heart  of  the  great  desert  had  listened  to 
Saint  Simeon  from  the  top  of  his  prison  column,  and 
received  the  gospel  at  his  hands.  In  Persia,  Chris- 
tian  bishops  had  overthrown  the  temples  of  the 


THE  BROAD   CHURCH.  153 

sun.  On  the  slopes  of  the  Caucasus  a  Georgian 
king  and  queen,  themselves  instructed  by  a  Chris- 
tian slave,  had  succeeded  in  evangelizing  their 
people.  Meanwhile,  at  the  other  extremity,  Ire- 
land, converted  by  holy  Patrick  as  early  as  the 
fifth  century,  was  known  as  the  "  Island  of  Saints," 
the  school  of  Christian  Europe,  and  a  centre  of 
spiritual  light.  The  savage  Goth  was  tamed  into 
a  peaceful  confessor  of  the  Gospel  of  peace,  and, 
German-like,  must  have  the  word  in  his  native 
tongue.  Learned  Jerome,  in  his  cell  at  Bethle- 
hem, translating  the  Bible  into  Latin,  is  aston- 
ished by  a  message  from  two  Goths  inquiring  the 
true  meaning  of  certain  passages  in  the  Psalms. 
"  Who  would  believe,"  he  says,  "  that  the  barbarian 
tongue  of  the  Goth  would  inquire  concerning  the 
sense  of  the  Hebrew  original,  and  that,  while  the 
Greeks  were  sleeping,  the  Germans  would  be  in- 
vestigating the  Word  of  God  ?  "  A  very  significant 
fact  it  is,  that  the  first  translation  of  the  Scriptures 
into  German,  the  language  of  a  rising  world  and  of 
modern  thought,  was  contemporary  with  the  first 
authoritative  translation  into  Latin,  the  language 
of  mediaeval  thought  and  a  dying  world. 

So  mightily  grew  the  Word,  and  prevailed  ;  and 
so  it  was  that  geographically  east  and  west  and 
north  and  south  sat  down  in  the  kingdom  of  God. 
And  in  our  day,  though  other  religions  may  num- 


154  THE  BROAD   CHURCH. 

ber  more  disciples,  there  is  none  so  widely  diffused 
as  the  Christian,  —  none  that  can  vie  with  it  in 
geographical  extent,  —  none  which  embraces  so 
many  latitudes  and  longitudes  and  differing  na- 
tionalities. A  few  meridians  include  the  boasted 
millions  of  Hinduism  and  of  Islaraism.  When 
daylight  dies  along  the  waves  of  the  Caspian,  it 
disappears  to  all  the  worshippers  of  Buddha ; 
when  "  sets  the  sun  on  Afric's  shore,  that  instant 
all  is  night "  to  the  followers  of  Mohammed ; 
but  Christendom  is  a  kingdom  on  which  the  sun 
never  sets,  where  east  and  west  and  north  and 
south  sit  down  together,  and  earth's  extremities 
join  hands. 

But  the  prophecy  of  our  Lord  has  another  mean- 
ing and  fulfilment  besides  the  geographical  one  we 
liave  been  discussing.  The  kingdom  of  God  has 
other  distinctions  and  relations,  divergences  and 
approximations,  than  those  of  space.  The  spiritual 
horizon  has  its  polarities  as  well  as  the  material. 
There  are  cardinal  points  of  the  spirit,  as  decided 
in  their  peculiarities  as  east  and  west  and  north 
and  south,  and,  like  these  divisions  of  the  compass, 
organic  constituents  of  the  spiritual  world,  neces- 
sary each  to  its  orbed  completeness  and  indispen- 
sable to  its  very  being.  Viewing  the  prophecy  in 
this  light,  it  expresses  the  spiritual  completeness  of 
the  kingdom  of  God,  or  the  Christian  Church,  as 


THE  BROAD   CHURCH.  155 

well  as  its  geographical  extent.  East,  west,  north, 
south,  ma}^  be  regarded  as  typifying  different  ten- 
dencies and  qualities  of  the  spirit,  —  the  east,  sta- 
bility, conservatism ;  the  west,  mobility,  progress  ; 
the  north,  internal  activity,  the  inner  life,  ideal- 
ism, mysticism  ;  the  south,  exterior  productiveness, 
ritualism,  symbolism,  ecclesiastical  organization. 

All  these  tendencies  and  types  of  spirit  were 
represented  in  the  primitive  Church,  —  the  Church 
of  the  Apostles.  We  find  them  all  in  the  New 
Testament.  The  element  of  stability  —  the  con- 
servative element  —  was  impersonated  in  Peter, 
and  still  more  decidedly  in  James,  first  Bishop  of 
Jerusalem,  —  in  general,  we  may  say,  by  that  first 
Jerusalem  church,  which  adhered  so  strongly  to 
the  Old  Covenant,  to  Moses  and  Mosaism,  that  in 
fact  it  was  only  a  Jewish  sect,  —  a  synagogue  dif- 
fering from  other  synagogues  only  in  the  one  tenet 
that  Jesus  was  the  Christ.  The  antagonist  princi- 
ple of  progress,  how  perfectly  it  was  incarnated  in 
Paul,  the  daring  innovator,  founder  of  cosmopoli- 
tan Christianity,  who  burst  the  bonds  of  Judaism, 
cut  loose  from  the  moorings  of  the  Old  Covenant, 
and  carried  the  New  to  the  Gentile  West. 

If  we  look  for  traces  in  this  age  of  the  idealistic, 
mystical  spirit,  we  find  them  clear  and  decided  in 
the  Gospel  and  First  Epistle  of  John,  whose  author 
thought  more  of  the  invisible  Church  than  of  the 


156  THE  BROAD   CHURCH. 

visible,  and  less  of  the  Jewish  historical  Christ 
than  he  did  of  the  eternal  Christ,  the  Divine  Word 
incarnated  in  him,  whose  God  was  not  the  Jehovah 
of  the  Jews,  but  light  and  love,  and  who  in  his  in- 
wardness and  ideality  is  the  prototype  of  the  mys- 
tics and  qiuetists  of  later  time. 

Finally,  the  ritual  and  symbolical  side  of  reli- 
gion was  also  represented  in  the  primitive  Church 
and  in  the  New  Testament.  The  Epistle  to  the 
Hebrews  finds  in  all  the  ceremonial  of  Judaism  the 
foretype  of  Christian  sanctities ;  and  the  Book  of 
Revelation  under  the  figure  of  the  New  Jerusalem 
contemplates  a  Christian  church  which  is  some- 
thing more  than  the  spiritual  fellowship  of  believ- 
ers,—  a  close  organization,  a  compact,  corporate 
institution,  with  the  powers  and  functions  pertain- 
ing to  such  a  body. 

What  is  true  of  the  primitive  Church  and  the 
undeveloped  Christianity  of  the  apostolic  age,  how 
much  rather  is  it  true  of  every  subsequent  age  of 
the  Church!  When  Eastern  and  Western  Chris- 
tendom divided  in  the  irreconcilable  antagonism  of 
their  views  and  claims,  in  spite  of  the  geographical 
separation,  the  spiritual  compass  remained  unim- 
paired and  complete.  The  Western  Church,  with 
which  our  Protestant  Christendom  more  immedi- 
ately connects  itself,  had  still  its  spiritual  east  and 
west,  its  north  and  south.     Through  all  the  period 


THE  BROAD   CHURCH.  157 

of  the  Middle  Age  these  types  are  present,  and 
these  tendencies  at  work.  Take  the  culmination 
of  the  Roman  hierarchy.  The  period  of  the  great- 
est consolidation  and  seeming  uniformity  was  also 
that  of  the  greatest  internal  divergency.  If  con- 
servatism reigned  undisputed  on  the  seven  hills, 
reform  was  triumphant  in  the  gorges  of  the  Jura 
and  the  valleys  of  Provence ;  if  ritualism  was  ram- 
pant in  one  quarter,  idealism  had  reached  its  cli- 
max in  another.  Peter  the  Venerable  is  oracle 
here  ;  Peter  de  Bruys  is  oracle  there.  The  mighty 
Innocent  in  his  pride  of  place  is  constrained  to 
approve  the  beggar  from  Assisi,  whose  ominous 
career  he  would  fain  have  suppressed,  but  that 
policy  finds  the  popular  preacher  less  dangerous 
within  the  Church  than  out  of  it.  While  Thomas 
Aquinas  is  seeking  to  perpetuate  the  past,  and  to 
fix  the  sum  of  theology  in  inexpugnable  and  irre- 
vocable dogmas,  Raymond  and  Oliva  and  others 
are  proclaiming  the  "  Everlasting  Gospel "  of  hu- 
man progress,  and  announcing  a  new  age  and  a 
new  dispensation  of  the  Holy  Spirit. 

If  now  we  come  to  the  world  of  our  own  time, 
to  the  Protestant  Christendom  of  to-day,  we  find 
there  also  —  regarding  Protestantism  externally 
and  historically  as  one  movement  —  a  complete 
church,  in  which  east  and  west  and  north  and 
south   are   all  represented.     Protestant    Christen- 


158  THE  BROAD   CHURCH. 

doin  is  bounded  on  the  east  by  the  Rocky  Moun- 
tains of  immovable  Orthodoxy,  on  the  west  by  the 
River  of  Free  Inquiry,  on  the  north  by  the  White 
Sea  of  Mysticism,  on  the  south  by  the  Gulf  of 
Prelacy,  which  divides  it  from  the  Church  of 
Rome.  In  other  words,  Calvinism  at  one  extrem- 
ity, and  Universalism  at  the  other,  Quakerism  and 
Spiritism  on  this  hand,  and  Episcopacy  on  that, 
define  this  spiritual  kingdom  and  attest  its  com- 
pleteness. But  though  Protestantism  as  a  whole, 
externally  and  historically  considered,  exhibits 
this  compass  and  variety,  it  is  one  of  the  evils  of 
Protestantism  that,  internally  and  practically,  it  is 
not  a  whole,  but  a  chaos  of  disunited,  independent 
states,  having  no  ecclesiastical  fellowship  with 
one  another.  The  Protestant  Christian,  however 
catholic  his  own  temper  and  views,  is  practically 
shut  up  within  the  fold  of  a  sect  which,  if  liberal, 
is  excluded  by  all  the  rest,  and  which,  if  illiberal, 
excludes  them.  If  a  native  of  the  east,  it  is  not 
lawful  for  him  to  sit  down  with  them  of  the  west ; 
if  he  come  from  the  west,  he  is  an  offence  to  the 
saints  of  the  east;  if  inclined  to  the  north,  he  is 
cut  off  from  the  sympathies  of  the  south ;  if 
reared  in  the  south,  he  is  early  imbued  with  a  holy 
horror  of  the  north.  The  only  way  to  obviate  this 
evil  in  each  particular  communion  is  by  individual 
tolerance  to  strive  for  completeness   within   that 


THE  BROAD   CHURCH.  159 

fold.  Each  sect  should  seek,  so  far  as  practicable, 
to  be  a  catholic,  complete  church.  A  sect  is  then 
in  a  healthy  state  when  a  due  admixture  of  con- 
servatism and  liberality,  of  speculation  and  activ- 
ity, of  idealism  and  formalism,  answering  the 
condition  and  satisfying  the  necessities  of  different 
minds,  supplies  all  the  elements  of  ecclesiastical 
edification,  and  completes  the  spiritual  horizon. 
East,  west,  north,  and  south  must  unite  in  every 
kingdom  of  God,  and  every  sect  is  in  theory  such  a 
kingdom. 

1.  Every  church  must  have  its  east.  The  east 
is  the  region  of  steadfastness,  of  perpetuity.  The 
terrestrial  east,  the  geographical  east,  the  old 
Asian  world,  has  had  historically  this  character,  — 
the  home  of  aboriginal,  imperishable  light,  of  eter- 
nal dominion  and  unchangeable  custom.  Every 
church  must  have  its  conservative  side,  its  point 
of  resistance,  its  fixed  fact,  its  morning  sun  of  un- 
changeable verity,  —  something  eternal,  immu- 
table, sufficing.  And  what  should  that  be  but  the 
Christ,  God's  Christ  and  our  Christ,  the  same  yes- 
terday, to-day,  and  forever,  the  spiritual  sun  of 
our  human  world  ?  Fundamental  and  indispen- 
sable to  every  true  church  is  the  idea  of  Christ, — 
not  the  moral  teacher  and  philosopher,  a  Jewish 
Socrates  or  Confucius,  but  Christ,  the  Son  of  man 
and  the  Son  of  God,  impersonation  of  the  divine- 


160  THE  BROAD   CHURCH. 

Imman,  never  as  a  name  and  a  sanctity  to  be  set 
aside  or  superseded,  however  the  doctrines  and 
views  connected  with  that  name  may  change  and 
disappear  with  the  course  of  time.  In  fact,  that 
name  is  the  only  one  of  a  veritable,  historical  per- 
sonage, that  has  had  the  power  to  organize  his- 
tory, —  not  the  history  of  this  or  that  tribe,  but 
the  world's  history, — to  thread  the  nations  and 
the  ages  on  the  string  of  an  idea,  and  to  bind  them 
in  oecumenical  relations  to  the  throne  of  God.  It 
was  this  that  laid  hold  of  the  New  World,  and  — 
what  commerce  and  conquest  could  not  do  —  at- 
tached it  to  the  Old,  and  gave  to  these  States  the 
spiritual  results  of  the  past  without  the  tedium  of  its 
processes.  No  name  has  spanned  such  chasms  and 
schisms  of  thought  and  life.  None  carries  with  it 
such  pledge  of  perpetuity.  What  changes  may  yet 
pass  upon  society,  what  revolutions,  political,  eccle- 
siastical, moral,  may  toss  and  convulse  and  remodel 
the  Church  and  the  world,  surpasses  the  sagacity 
of  man  to  predict.  But  of  this  be  sure,  —  this, 
even  amid  the  darkness  and  the  deeps,  the  uncer- 
tainty, perplexity,  and  agony  of  time,  through 
Avhich  humanity  is  now  groping  its  perilous  way, 
we  may  venture  to  affirm,  —  that  the  name  of 
Christ  and  its  sacred  import  will  surmount  all  and 
survive.  All  the  tempests  that  sweep  society  will 
not  pluck  the  idea  of  divine  humanity  incarnate  in 


THE  BROAD   CHURCH.  161 

Christ  from  the  soul  of  man  and  the  path  of  history. 
So  long  as  the  sun  whicli  makes  our  natural  day 
shall  rise  in  the  east  and  hasten  on  to  the  west, 
that  diviner  sun  which  makes  our  soul's  day  will 
continue  to  rise  on  each  successive  generation  and 
accompany  each  to  their  rest. 

Other  ideas  there  are,  necessarily  connected 
with  that  of  Christ  —  ideas  of  man's  nature  and 
calling  and  destiny,  of  reconciliation  and  atone- 
ment in  Christ,  —  ideas  underlying,  but  by  no 
means  identical  with,  the  dogmas  of  the  sects, 
which  are  also  original  constituents  of  the  Gospel, 
and  therefore  necessary  elements  in  a  true  Chris- 
tian church.  Every  church  is  bound  to  respect 
them,  and  in  virtue  of  them  every  church  must 
have  its  conservative  side,  its  cardinal  east,  the 
eye  of  its  horizon,  the  salient  principle  and  start- 
ing-point of  its  spiritual  life. 

2.  Then,  secondly,  each  church  must  have  its 
west.  The  west,  in  our  interpretation  of  this 
Scripture,  stands  for  mobility,  variety,  progress. 
Our  own  west,  this  young  continent,  with  its  rapid 
and  amazing  growths,  its  spreading  populations, 
its  ever-multiplying  ways  of  communication,  its 
endless  traffic,  and  its  shifting  customs,  suggests 
this  use  of  the  term,  type  as  it  is  of  mobile  and 
progressive  life.  Every  church  should  be  flexile 
and  plastic  enough  in  doctrine  and  discipline  to 

11 


162  THE  BROAD   CHURCH. 

allow  of  growth ;  it  must  not  assume  to  have  all 
truth  and  all  knowledge  in  its  traditions,  to  be 
"  perfect  and  entire,  wanting  nothing,"  nor  think 
to  confine  the  action  of  the  mind,  to  limit  the 
progress  of  inquiry,  and  to  tie  Christianity  forever 
to  its  creed.  Christianity,  though  bound  to  a 
given  idea  and  to  certain  immutable  truths,  is 
not,  for  the  rest,  a  fixture,  but  a  movement  and 
a  growth  ;  not  a  divinely  established  system  of 
views  and  institutions  and  immutable  forms  of 
thought  and  life,  but  a  flowing  demonstration  of 
the  spirit  in  such  forms  and  aspects  and  embodi- 
ments as  each  successive  age  required,  or  was 
fitted  to  apprehend  and  to  profit  by,  —  a  series 
of  evolutions  in  which  truths  and  principles  un- 
changeable in  their  essence  are  variously  expressed 
to  differing  minds  in  different  times,  —  a  progres- 
sive revelation  of  God  in  Christ.  That  such  is 
the  true  and  providential  character  and  destiny 
of  our  religion  is  evident  in  the  writings  of  the 
New  Testament,  when  we  compare  the  statement 
of  Christianity  in  the  first  chapters  of  the  Acts 
with  the  statement  of  it  in  the  Epistles  to  the  Co- 
rinthians and  the  First  Epistle  of  John.  We  see 
there  the  immense  stride  which  the  Church  made 
in  the  age  of  the  Apostles,  and  in  their  hands, 
from  Jewish  Christianity  to  universal  Christianity, 
from  a  national  polity  to  the  faith  of  mankind. 


THE  BROAD   CHURCH.  163 

The  march  thus  inaugurated  did  not  stop  for 
nearly  a  thousand  years,  and  then  only  slackened 
in  the  darkness  and  storm  of  the  feudal  niglit.  It 
has  never  really  stopped  to  this  day ;  when  in  one 
organization  it  found  itself  hampered  and  brought 
to  a  stand,  it  burst  into  schism  and  resumed  the 
movement  in  a  new.  The  Holy  Spirit,  wliose  body 
is  the  Church,  does  not  bind  itself  to  uniformity 
of  doctrine  or  rite,  but  adapts  itself  to  different 
minds  and  times.  The  spirit  is  one  ;  but  there  are 
differences  of  administrations  and  diversities  of 
gifts,  divergent  views  and  dissentient  tongues,  one 
Lord  and  many  confessions,  unity  in  variety.  This 
is  the  method  and  law  of  the  Church  universal; 
and  each  particular  church  and  connection  should 
respect  in  this  the  mind  of  the  Spirit,  not  seek  to 
impose  a  uniform  system  of  belief,  not  insist  on  a 
single  solution  of  every  question,  but  open  itself 
to  free  discussion,  tolerate  dissenting  views,  allow 
full  scope  to  philosophic  speculation  within  the 
limits  of  the  Christian  idea,  and  maintain  an  open 
and  liberal  west,  as  well  as  a  close  and  steadfast 
east. 

3.  And  further,  every  church  must  have  its 
north.  The  north  I  have  designated  as  the  region 
of  idealism,  which,  in  religion,  soon  turns  to  mys- 
ticism. The  terrestrial  north,  with  its  atmospheric 
peculiarities,  its  magnetic   mysteries  and  auroral 


164  THE  BROAD   CHURCH. 

splendors,  indicating  as  it  were  a  nearer  com- 
merce with  the  skies,  may  seem  to  warrant  this 
designation.  The  Puritan  genius  of  our  Ameri- 
can churches  has  no  affinity  and  little  patience 
with  what  is  called  mysticism,  inclining  rather  to 
literal  interpretations  and  surface  views.  But 
mysticism  is  a  very  important  element  in  religion, 
—  a  feeling  after  God,  "if  haply  we  may  find  him.'* 
It  is  that  by  which  religion  lays  hold  of  the  invisi- 
ble and  enters  into  fuller,  that  is,  more  conscious 
and  intimate,  communion  with  the  spiritual  and 
heavenly  world.  Without  it  there  is  danger  that 
the  Church  will  lose  the  consciousness  of  God,  and 
become  a  distant  province  of  God's  kingdom, — 
an  outlying  colony,  governed  by  deputies,  instead 
of  that  kingdom  itself,  with  God  in  Christ  for  its 
present  and  conscious  home-government  and  head. 
When  the  Church  in  ages  past  had  become  that, 
or  was  threatening  to  become  it ;  when  the  Roman 
hierarchical  polity  had  slipped  its  holdings,  cut  it- 
self off  from  the  invisible  by  its  eartliliness  and 
secularity,  and  set  itself  up  for  an  independent 
kingdom,  with  Rome  for  its  heaven  and  a  pope  for 
its  God,  there  arose  in  the  order  of  Providence  the 
great  mystics  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centu- 
ries, the  new  fathers,  not  inferior  to  the  old,  who 
restored  the  Church  to  the  fellowship  and  com- 
munion of  the  Holy  Spirit.     Who  can  read  with 


THE  BROAD   CHURCH.  165 

attention  the  Gospel  of  John,  and  not  see  how  a 
tincture  of  mysticiKsm  deepens  and  quickens  and 
intensifies  what  is  best  and  holiest  in  religion ! 
How  much  more  profound  the  Christianity  there, 
than  that  of  the  other  Gospels !  How  much  more 
intimate  the  author's  communion  with  the  soul  of 
Christ,  and  his  appreciation  of  Christian  truth ! 
The  other  Evangelists  give  us  a  prophet;  the  fourth 
gives  us  the  Word  made  flesh.  If  we  were  to 
strike  from  the  library  of  Christian  literature  the 
writings  which  could  best  be  spared,  they  would 
be  the  folios  of  systematic  theology,  the  Bodies  of 
Divinity,  so  called,  —  those  weary  compilations  in 
which  massive  and  useless  dogmatic  edifices  are 
reared  on  the  oldness  of  the  letter,  with  no  ap- 
parent apprehension  in  the  writers  of  the  deeper 
import  which  the  letter  conceals.  But  if  we  were 
to  select  from  the  writings  of  the  Church  the 
works  which  we  would  not  willingly  let  die,  the 
works  to  be  preserved  and  handed  down,  they 
would  be  those  mystic  compositions  of  the  Roman 
and  Protestant  communions,  which,  though  little 
read  by  the  flighty  readers  of  this  time,  are  felt  to 
be  given  by  inspiration  of  God,  and  to  be  invalu- 
able for  suggestion  and  reproof  and  "  instruction 
in  righteousness,"  —  the  writings  of  Anselm  and 
Thomas  a  Kempis  and  Tauler  and  Fenelon  and 
Jacob  Boehme  and  William  Law,  —  inexhaustible 


166  THE  BROAD   CHURCH. 

treasuries  of  fructifying  thought,  and  celestial  mon- 
itors of  heart  and  life.  Something  of  mysticism  is 
inseparable  from  devotion.  Every  prayer  which 
we  breathe,  which  is  not  a  formal  offering  or  a 
begging  for  temporal  good,  but  a  genuine  aspira- 
tion, a  gushing  up  from  the  deep  heart,  a  yearning 
after  God,  is  a  mystical  act,  and  if  analyzed  and 
referred  to  the  fundamental  principle  involved  in 
it,  will  be  found  to  point  to  mystical  theories  of 
man  and  God.  I  say,  then,  that  mysticism  in  this 
sense  is  a  necessary  element  of  religion,  and  can 
never  be  wanting  in  a  true  church.  It  is  this  that 
keeps  the  heavens  open,  and  God  near,  and  the  soul 
awake.  Nature  holy,  the  word  significant,  and  life 
divine.  Every  church  that  is  sound  and  flourish- 
ing will  welcome  gladly  and  cherish  kindly  tliis 
mystic  northern  light,  whose  very  eccentricities 
and  dancing  meteors,  the  sportive  gleams  and  wild 
coruscations  which  seem  so  unpractical,  confess  at 
least  a  sublime  aspiration,  prophetic,  it  may  be,  of 
a  better  life,  when  heaven  and  earth  shall  meet 
in  eternal  day. 

4.  Finally,  the  Church  must  have  its  south. 
A  church  requires  a  ritual,  requires  symbols  and 
sacraments,  —  something  outward  as  the  exponent 
and  medium  of  ecclesiastical  life.  The  teeming 
and  exuberant  south,  with  its  tropical  luxuriance, 
fertile  of  forms,  abounding  in  varied  and  organic 


THE  BROAD   CHURCH.  167 

life,  may  serve  to  typify  this  side  of  religion  and 
the  Church, —  its  organism,  —  by  which  term  I 
comprehend  whatever  pertains  to  worship  and 
communion  and  corporate  action.  The  necessity 
of  organization  to  a  church,  the  necessity  of  ritual 
or  sometlung  corresponding  thereto  in  the  way  of 
worship,  and  of  some  description,  however  simple, 
of  ecclesiastical  polity,  is  proved  —  if  the  nature  of 
things  and  the  laws  of  life  are  not  sufficient  for 
that  purpose  —  by  the  case  of  the  first,  the  abo- 
riginal church,  and  the  example  of  the  Apostles. 
Jesus  prescribed  no  form  that  we  know,  and  none 
was  needed  so  long  as  the  Master  himself  was 
present,  the  fountain-head  and  lord  of  life,  to  fill 
and  to  bind  the  Church  of  his  disciples.  Its  or- 
ganization was  then  spontaneous ;  life  from  the 
living  source  pervading  the  whole,  a  flowing  artic- 
ulation from  moment  to  moment  of  thought  and 
love.  But  no  sooner  was  the  Master  withdrawn 
than  his  followers  began  to  organize  at  once  both 
worship  and  life,  and  we  find  them  in  those  first 
days  joining  in  litanies,  choosing  officers,  assigning 
functions,  establishing  a  commonwealth,  and  hold- 
ing councils.  The  Holy  Spirit  which  was  poured 
upon  them  took  to  itself  an  organic  body, .  and 
became  articulate  in  forms  and  rites.  And  from 
that  time  to  this,  formal  worship,  liturgical  devo- 
tion, and  ecclesiastical  organization  have  been  co- 


168  THE  BROAD   CHURCH. 

ordinate,  or  nearly  so,  with  the  Christian  name. 
Whatever  exceptions  there  may  be  but  confirm 
the  rule.  If  any  movement  of  dissent  from  the 
doctrine  and  practice  of  a  given  church  has  failed 
to  organize  devotion  and  action,  it  has  passed 
away,  or  is  passing ;  it  has  been  absorbed,  or  is 
destined  to  be  absorbed,  by  other  sects,  in  which 
the  vital  principle  is  more  energetic  and  organific. 
A  church  without  a  ritual,  without  symbols  and 
sacraments  and  a  corporate  organism,  as  a  per- 
manent institution,  is  an  impossibility,  a  contra- 
diction in  terms.  The  religious  sentiment,  it  is 
true,  is  spontaneous  and  eternal ;  in  one  form  or 
another  it  will  always  exist  where  man  exists ; 
but  this  spontaneous  religion,  unfixed  and  uncer- 
tain, may  so  degenerate  as  to  become  an  evil  rather 
than  a  good.  There  is  no  absolute  religion  for 
man,  but  only  particular,  given  religions.  And 
any  particular  religion,  as  the  Christian,  for  exam- 
ple, preserves  its  identity  by  means  of  symbols, 
without  which  what  is  Christian  this  year  may 
turn  to  heathen  tlie  next.  Religion  craves  expres- 
sion, —  a  permanent  religion,  a  stated  expression ; 
a  common  religion,  a  common  worship  and  com- 
mon rites.  In  other  words,  religion  requires  a 
church  for  its  exponent ;  and  a  church  requires  a 
ritual  for  its  medium,  and  a  corporate  organism 
for  its  conservation.     The  individual  may  feel  no 


THE  BROAD   CHURCH.  169 

want  of  symbol  or  sacraments,  and  no  satisfaction 
in  them.  It  is  because  the  religious  sentiment  in 
him  is  imperfectly  developed,  or  not  of  the  genuine 
Christian  type.  And  though  the  individual  may 
do  without  them,  a  church  cannot.  A  fatal  weak- 
ness inheres  in  the  church  that  wants  or  neglects 
them ;  its  doom  is  writ,  its  dissolution  is  sure. 
A  true  church  with  other  requirements  and  be- 
londnss  will  have  and  cherish  this  southern  side 
of  ritual  worship,  this  southern  principle  of  organic 
life ;  and  however  its  antecedents  and  its  exigen- 
cies may  forbid  the  tropical  luxuriance  of  the 
Churcli  of  Rome,  where  ritual  runs  to  mummery 
and  organization  to  despotism,  it  will  reverence  at 
least  and  hold  fast  whatever  in  tlie  way  of  sym- 
bol and  rite  belongs  by  tradition  to  its  proper 
constitution. 

These  four,  represented  by  and  representing  the 
fourfold  completeness  of  the  spiritual  horizon,  east, 
west,  north,  and  south,  —  stability  and  progress, 
ideal  and  ritual, —  are  the  cardinal  constituents  of 
a  true  church.  To  which  we  must  add,  as  the  com- 
plement and  crown  of  the  whole,  the  Charity  which 
binds  and  pervades  and  harmonizes  all,  —  that 
supreme  grace  of  the  Christian  dispensation,  Love 
manifest  in  works  of  social  reform,  in  ministra- 
tions to  the  poor  and  suffering,  in  health  to  the 
sick,  and  light  to  them  that  sit  in  darkness,  and 


170  THE  BROAD   CHURCH. 

the  opening  of  the  prison  to  them  that  are  bound. 
The  church  in  which  these  elements  unite  is  a 
broad  church,  though  numbering  its  disciples  not 
by  millions,  but  by  hundreds  or  by  tens.  A  holy 
catholic  church  it  is,  though  the  smallest  sect  in 
Christendom,  and  excommunicated  by  all  the  rest. 
I  believe  in  the  Broad  Church  thus  defined.  Ac- 
cording to  the  creed  of  the  Fathers, "  I  believe  in 
the  Holy  Catholic  Church,"  —  not  that  which  con- 
sists in  masses  and  indulgences,  in  manipulations 
and  genuflexions,  and  infallibility  and  a  broaden 
God,  but  that  which  consists  in  faith  and  progress 
and  devotion  and  love.  Let  each  churcli  labor  in 
its  place  and  kind  to  develop  and  assert  this  catho- 
licity, and  the  boundary  lines  which  divide  the  sects 
shall  be  washed  clean  out  in  the  gracious  life  that 
shall  flood  them  all,  and  fuse  them  all  into  one  pre- 
vailing kingdom  of  God,  whose  unshut  gates  shall 
exclude  none  that  desire  to  enter,  and  where  east 
and  west  and  north  and  south  shall  meet  in  peace 
and  join  in  praise. 


XII. 

LOVE   CANCELS   OBLIGATION. 

Owe  no  man  anything^  hut  to  love  one  another. 

Romans  xiii.  8. 

'T^HE  first  clause  of  this  precept,  taken  by  it- 
"^  self,  demands  an  impossibility.  We  may  dis- 
charge our  pecuniary  obligations  for  meat  and 
clothes,  we  may  pay  rent  and  taxes  and  the  ser- 
vices of  all  whom  we  employ  ;  but  that  does  not 
exempt  us  from  all  indebtedness  to  our  kind,  it 
does  not  make  us  independent  of  our  fellow-men. 
We  talk  of  an  independent  fortune ;  but  indepen- 
dence is  no  gift  of  fortune.  A  man  can  no  more 
be  independent  of  others  in  that  way,  by  favor  of 
fortune,  than  a  limb  or  a  muscle  can  be  indepen- 
dent of  the  rest  of  the  body.  In  society  we  are 
members  one  of  another,  and  every  member  needs 
all  the  rest.  You  may  have  what  you  call  an 
independent  fortune.  But  suppose  all  about  you 
were  as  rich  as  yourself  ?  Who  then  would  till 
your  garden,  harness  your  horses,  make  your  gar- 
ments, cook  your  food  ?     If  all  were  rich,  none 


172  LOVE   CANCELS   OBLIGATION. 

would   be  so  in   the   way   supposed.     As   society 
is   now   constituted,   your   wealth    may   generally 
command   the   service  of  others,  but  it  does   not 
make  you  independent  of  that  service.     Inequal- 
ity does  not  cancel  obligation.     For  suppose  again 
the  poor  and  dependent,  for  some  reason  or  other, 
should  refuse  to  render  you  the  needful  service  ? 
Such  cases  have  been,  and  may  be  again.     What 
becomes  of  your  independence  then  ?     Is  the  lady 
housewife   less   dependent    on  her   cook  than  the 
cook   is   on   her  ?     Ask   the   housewives   of  your 
acquaintance,  —  those    especially   whose    defective 
knowledge  or  defective  muscle  renders  them  inca- 
pable  of   performing   the   cook's   function,  —  ask 
them   what  is   their   experience   in   that   regard  ? 
The  rich  manufacturer  is  sometimes  deserted  by 
the  hands  he  employs  ;  they  combine  and  revolt ; 
they  organize   what   is    called  "  a  strike."     With 
large  contracts  on  his  hands  and  a  waiting  mar- 
ket, his   wheels   are   blocked,  his  spindles  pause, 
his   engines    sleep,   his    business    is    stopped.     He 
must  come  to  terms  with  his  operatives  before  his 
mill  can  resume  its  action  and  fulfil  its  purpose. 
If  they  depend  on  him  for  place    and    bread,  he 
depends  on  them  no  less  for  what  to  him  is  dearer 
than  bread,  commercial  position,  the  credit  of  his 
liouse.     So  far  as  we  may  judge  from  recent   in- 
dications,  from   the   increasing    solidarity    of    the 


LOVE   CANCELS   OBLIGATION.  I73 

laboring  classes,  and  the  movement  known  as 
labor  reform,  the  dependence  of  the  rich  on  the 
poor,  of  the  employer  on  the  employed,  is  likely 
to  increase  in  a  swifter  ratio  than  its  converse,  — 
the  dependence  of  the  employed  on  the  employer, 
of  the  servant  on  the  master. 

It  is  in  vain  for  any  class  or  individual  to  think 
of  escaping  indebtedness  to  others.  A  man  must 
make  his  lodge  in  the  wilderness  to  do  that  even  in 
a  proximate  degree.  There  are  obligations  which 
we  cannot  avoid.  Who  of  us  shall  say,  I  owe  no 
man  anything?  We  owe  men  everything.  We  owe 
them  our  position  in  society,  which  we  hold  by  their 
permission.  We  owe  them  the  protection  of  their 
laws,  the  benefit  of  their  institutions,  the  results 
of  their  labor,  the  aids  to  improvement,  the  stores 
of  knowledge,  the  wealth  of  thought,  with  which 
they  have  ministered  and  do  forever  minister  to 
body,  mind,  and  soul ;  everything,  in  short,  whereby 
civilized  Christian  man  in  this  late  time  is  elevated 
and  blessed  above  the  naked  son  of  the  forest  who 
has  nothing  but  the  God-given  earth  and  skies.  Say 
not,  imagine  not,  that  you  have  paid  for  all  this, 
that  indebtedness  is  cancelled  and  obligation 
annulled  by  discharging  the  nominal  pecuniary 
cost  by  which  your  share  in  these  benefactions 
has  been  obtained ;  that  the  price  of  living,  as 
by  these  services  you  are  enabled  to  live,  has  been 


174  LOVE   CANCELS   OBLIGATION. 

paid  by  you  in  currency  or  coin,  or  can  be  so 
paid ;  that  the  thousands  of  dollars  which  you 
disburse  every  year  makes  you  quits  with  the 
world.  Owe  nothing,  do  you  say  ?  Paid  for  all  ? 
You  may  pay  your  tradesman  for  his  wares,  you 
may  pay  your  tailor  for  your  coat,  your  butcher 
and  your  cook  for  your  meals.  But  what  have  you 
paid  Arkwright  and  Watt  for  your  cotton  ?  What 
have  you  paid  Kepler  and  Newton  and  Laplace 
and  Bowditch  for  your  ocean  commerce  ?  What 
have  you  paid  Sir  Humphry  Davy  for  your  coal  ? 
What  have  you  paid  Carver  and  Bradford  and 
Winthrop  for  your  New  England  heritage  ?  What 
have  you  paid  George  Stephenson  for  your  rapid 
journey  to  New  York  ?  What  have  you  paid 
Franklin  and  Oersted  and  Morse  for  your  tele- 
grams ?  What  have  you  paid  Gutenberg  and 
Faust  for  your  books  ?  The  world  in  which  you 
live  is  a  mass  of  benefactions  you  can  never  in 
that  way  requite,  —  a  debt  you  can  never  dis- 
charge with  money.  Ages  of  labor  and  sacrifice 
have  made  it  what  it  is.  You  cannot  stir  without 
encountering  obligations  which  no  conceivable 
amount  of  silver  or  gold  can  ever  compensate. 
You  send  your  son  to  college,  and  incur  heavy 
charges  for  the  four  years'  course.  Do  you  fancy 
you  pay  the  entire  cost  of  his  education  by  the 
fees  of  tuition  and  other  fees  you  are  called   to 


LOVE   CANCELS   OBLIGATION.  175 

disburse  ?  Do  you  fancy  you  pay  Harvard  and 
Hollis  and  the  rest  for  the  means  of  instruction 
there  enjoyed  ?  A  distinction  is  made  between 
beneficiary  students  and  those  who  pay  the  full 
price  of  the  course.  But  in  fact  every  student 
in  that  university  is  a  beneficiary;  he  owes  his 
education  to  charities  and  gifts,  —  a  debt  whose 
amount  the  richest  can  never  refund. 

And  to  mount  from  worldly  and  intellectual  ob- 
ligations to  spiritual,  —  from  that  which  is  least  to 
that  which  is  highest,  —  who  shall  repay  the  proph- 
ets and  martyrs  of  sacred  truths  for  the  light  they 
have  shed  on  our  mortal  path,  and  for  the  hope  of 
immortality  ?  Who  shall  satisfy  the  debt  incurred 
by  their  testimonies  and  sacrifices,  the  dangers 
braved,  the  pains  endured  in  the  cause  of  mankind  ? 
Who  shall  pay  for  deliverance  from  the  bondage 
of  the  Church  of  Rome  ?  Who  shall  pay  for  de- 
liverance from  heathen  superstition,  from  sacrifi- 
cial burdens,  for  all  the  liberty  wherewith  Christ 
hath  made  us  free  ?  For  a  being  so  endowed,  so 
deluged  with  benefactions,  to  talk  of  indepen- 
dence, to  boast  his  release  from  obligations  to  his 
kind,  is  monstrous  ingratitude,  is  overweening, 
presumptuous  pride.  Whatever  he  may  think, 
every  son  of  man  is  a  debtor  to  his  kind  for  the 
larger  part  of  all  that  he  possesses,  or  can  by  any 
possibility  acquire.     A  compound  and  accumulated 


176  LOVE   CANCELS   OBLIGATION. 

debt  has  devolved  upon  his  head,  —  a  debt  of  which 
a  fraction  of  the  interest  is  all  that  with  lifelong 
effort  he  can  hope  to  discharge,  —  a  debt  contracted 
in  part  before  he  saw  the  light,  multiplied  by  all 
the  years  of  childish  imbecility  and  childish  depen- 
dence, and  consummated  by  drafts  on  years  to 
come.  Past,  Present,  and  Future  are  his  creditors. 
Let  them  make  up  their  audit,  and  all  that  is  in 
him  shall  not  suffice  to  cancel  the  immense  obliga- 
tion of  life,  if  life  be  strictly  reckoned  on  a  debt- 
and-credit  basis,  so  much  rendered  for  so  much 
received. 

It  is  clear  that  to  owe  no  man  anything  is  im- 
possible in  the  ordinary  sense  of  obligation,  im- 
possible on  a  market  estimate  of  the  goods  of  life. 
It  is  not  in  man  to  clear  himself  of  the  obligation 
he  owes  to  his  contemporaries  even,  to  say  nothing 
of  his  predecessors,  if  all  he  can  give  is  weighed 
in  market  scales  against  all  he  receives.  It  needs 
another  view  than  the  mercantile,  debt-and-credit 
theory  of  life  and  society  to  free  us  from  the 
weight  of  obligation,  the  overwhelming  burden  of 
indebtedness,  which  the  thoughtful  and  conscien- 
tious mind  must  feel,  regarding  the  subject  of  ben- 
efits received  and  ability  to  pay  in  that  Light. 

And  that  other  view  is  given  in  the  other  clause 
of  the  precept  before  us,  "  to  love  one  another." 
A  societv  based  on  that  principle,  on  mutual  lov- 


LOVE   CANCELS   OBLIGATION.  177 

ing  service,  each  for  all  and  all  for  each  ;  a  society 
such  as  Paul  contemplated,  such  as  Christianity 
would  make  of  mankind, —  would  know  no  obliga- 
tion in  the  sense  described.  Such  a  society  would 
be  literally  what  the  apostolic  figure  represents,  — 
one  body  and  many  members,  an  organization  com- 
pact as  the  animal  frame,  a  union  in  which  equality 
of  interest  precludes  the  sense  of  indebtedness  and 
relieves  the  irksomeness  of  obligation.  Suppose  the 
human  organism  were  endowed  with  self-conscious- 
ness in  every  part,  —  each  member,  each  muscle, 
each  organ,  distinctly  conscious  of  its  place  and 
function  in  relation  to  every  other  part  and  to  the 
whole,  would  there  be,  do  you  fancy,  any  sense  of 
indebtedness  of  part  to  part,  or  any  superior  claim 
of  this  over  that,  any  feeling  of  obligation  of  the 
hand  to  the  brain  or  the  brain  to  the  hand,  of 
the  heart  to  the  liver  or  the  liver  to  the  heart  ? 
Would  not  each  be  conscious  as  well  of  the  neces- 
sity of  all  to  it  as  of  it  to  all  ?  "  The  eye  cannot 
say  to  the  hand,  I  have  no  need  of  thee;"  nor 
can  the  most  active  and  conspicuous  member 
say  to  the  most  obscure,  I  have  no  need  of  you. 
"Nay,  much  more  those  members  of  the  body 
which  seem  to  be  more  feeble,  are  necessary." 
Now,  society  as  the  Gospel  desired  and  designed 
it,  would  be  essentially  such  an  organism,  so 
compact    in    its     structure,    so    complete    in    its 

12 


178  LOVE   CANCELS   OBLIGATION. 

union  of  part  with  part,  of  each  with  all,  so 
penetrated  with  one  life,  so  divorceless  and  in- 
separably one.  It  is  true,  society  never  has  been 
such,  not  even  primitive  Christian  society  in  the 
very  flush  of  its  newness,  except  here  and  there, 
spasmodically,  in  single  churches.  But  I  am 
speaking  now  of  ideals,  and  I  say  that  whenever 
and  so  far  as  these  ideals  shall  be  realized,  when- 
ever and  so  far  as  society  shall  be  what  Christianity 
would  make  it, the  precept, "Owe  no  man  anything," 
will  be  fulfilled.  Men  will  literally  owe  no  man 
anything,  but  in  mutual  love  will  lose  all  feeling 
of  indebtedness,  all  consciousness  of  claim  on  one 
side  and  obligation  on  the  other. 

In  every  case  of  social  union  which  at  all  ap- 
proximates to  this  ideal,  we  see  this  immunity 
realized.  Wherever  two  beings  are  bound  to  each 
other  by  reciprocal,  equal,  and  perfect  love,  all  feel- 
ing of  obligation  or  indebtedness  one  to  the  other 
ceases ;  there  is  no  question  of  claims  or  dues  be- 
tween them,  though  all  the  giving,  the  technical, 
ostensible  giving,  has  been  confined  to  one  side 
of  the  union  and  all  the  apparent  receiving  to 
the  other.  The  two  have  given  each  other  them- 
selves, their  entire  self,  the  uttermost  that  any 
can  give.  And  that  gift  is  so  transcendent,  so  con- 
summate and  complete  as  to  neutralize  all  other 
giving,  and  to  cancel  all  obligation.     In  a  case  of 


LOVE   CANCELS   OBLIGATION.  179 

friendship,  fervent  and  true,  between  two  large- 
hearted  men,  if  one  happens  to  be  in  want  and 
borrows,  and  the  other  happens  to  abound  and 
lends,  although  there  is  a  technical  and  legal 
indebtedness  of  the  borrower,  there  is  no  obliga- 
tion between  them,  or  if  any,  it  is  the  lender's 
quite  as  much  as  the  borrower's.  Does  the  father 
of  a  family  in  the  tug  and  strain  of  his  efforts  to 
maintain  his  dependants  in  decency  and  comfort, 
dream  of  any  other  obligation  than  his  own  obli- 
gation to  do  just  that  thing?  Does  the  thought 
of  their  indebtedness  enter  into  his  view  of  the 
relation  ?  Not  unless  he  is  wanting  in  natural 
affection.  The  family  is  one,  and  in  the  unity  of 
that  relation  there  is  neither  creditor  nor  debtor. 

Now,  oivil  society,  as  I  have  said,  is  not,  as  at 
present  subsisting,  the  embodiment  of  an  equal, 
mutual,  and  perfect  love ;  it  is  not  the  exact 
counterpart  of  the  animal  organism,  it  is  not  a 
union  of  consenting  souls,  it  is  not  one  family. 
To  view  it  as  such  does  not  make  it  such.  Still, 
the  precept  holds  good.  To  owe  no  man  any- 
thing, we  must  love  one  another.  You  wish  to  be 
independent ;  all  men  wish  it,  —  with  right  or 
wrong  views,  with  true  or  false  sentiment  touching 
the  desired  good.  But  the  thing  is  impossible  in 
the  way  in  which  most  men  seek  independence. 
It  is  impossible  in  the  way  of  haughty  insulation. 


180  LOVE   CANCELS  OBLIGATION. 

impossible  in  tlie  way  of  self-sufficiency,  of  immu- 
nity from  forced  tasks  and  toil  for  bread,  impos- 
sible in  the  way  of  wealth  or  social  position.  The 
only  way  to  be  independent  is  to  be  baptized  in 
the  element  of  love,  to  live  in  it  and  work  in  it, — 
giving  yourself  with  good  will  and  good  works  to 
your  kind.  On  the  market  theory  independence 
is  impossible,  —  owing  no  man  anything  is  out  of 
the  question ;  you  are  under  obligations,  immense, 
inextinguishable.  You  owe  a  debt  you  can  never 
discharge  with  money,  though  you  coin  your  life 
for  the  purpose. 

Discard,  then,  the  market  view  of  life,  and  rise  to 
the  heroic.  "  Owe  no  man  anything  but  to  love," 
is  the  apostolic  precept ;  do  the  best  you  can  for 
your  kind,  and  you  will  owe  no  man  anything. 
Your  legal  debts  for  market  values  being  paid 
with  their  legal  equivalent,  the  elder,  larger  debt 
to  society,  of  which  I  spoke,  can  only  be  dis- 
charged by  devotion,  giving  yourself  with  what 
of  faculty  there  is  in  you  to  the  service  of  your 
kind,  in  the  way  of  your  profession,  or  in  whatso- 
ever way  you  choose  to  work,  by  living  and  work- 
ing in  that  spirit  in  which  the  great  benefactors 
of  humankind  did  their  work,  that  is,  for  the 
work's  sake,  not  anxiously  considering  what  profit 
in  the  way  of  material  gain  might  accrue  to  them 
from  their  labors.     The  great  benefactors  are  not 


LOVE   CANCELS   OBLIGATION.  181 

to  be  paid  with  coin ;  they  can  only  be  paid  with 
gratitude  and  love,  and  an  answering  spirit.  There 
may  or  may  not  be  a  nominal  compensation  for 
the  time  employed  in  the  public  service ;  there 
may  be  awarded  to  them  the  amount  of  their  con- 
tract ;  but  the  thought,  the  genius,  the  patience, 
the  conscientious  fidelity  they  put  into  their  work 
are  not  to  be  requited  with  gold.  The  Treas- 
urer of  the  United  States  could  pay  to  George 
Washington  the  stipulated  sum  for  military  ser- 
vices rendered  in  the  War  of  the  Revolution ;  but 
the  United  States  was  not  rich  enough  then,  and 
is  not  rich  enough  now,  were  he  living,  to  pay  in 
money  what  the  nation  owes  to  that  man's  charac- 
ter and  work.  The  most  memorable  things,  the 
most  prized,  tlie  most  fruitful  of  blessing,  that 
brave  and  good  men  have  done  in  their  day,  have 
been  done  without  compensation.  Moses  received 
no  pay  for  bringing  Israel  from  the  house  of  bond- 
age, nor  Sakya-muni  for  delivering  his  followers 
from  the  yoke  of  caste.  David  received  no  pay  for 
his  Psalms,  nor  Isaiah  for  his  Prophecies,  nor  John 
for  his  Gospel.  Their  pay  is  the  reverent  heed 
with  which  millions  through  all  these  centuries 
have  received  their  word.  How  poor  and  barren 
this  world  would  be  if  nothing  had  ever  been  done 
in  it  without  stipulation !  How  large  a  portion  of 
the  dearest  blessings  of  life  would  be  wanting  to 


182  LOVE   CANCELS   OBLIGATION. 

us  at  this  moment,  but  for  those  who  were  willing 
to  spend  and  be  spent  without  hope  or  thought  of 
material  reward, — those  hero  priests  who  have 
sacrificed,  each  in  their  day,  at  the  altar  of  human 
weal,  and  the  savor  and  fruit  of  whose  sacrifice 
has  come  down  to  ours !  If  we  reckon  by  service 
rendered  and  value  received,  wliat  a  weight  of 
obligation  they  have  rolled  on  our  heads,  what  a 
claim  on  posterity  is  theirs  !  And  yet  the  hum- 
blest individual,  the  most  poorly  endowed,  in  the 
most  obscure  corner  of  the  earth,  who  lives  and 
works  in  their  spirit,  who  out  of  a  good  heart, 
with  dutiful  zeal  and  uncalculating  love,  pours 
forth  his  life  in  the  service  of  his  kind,  though 
nothing  comes  of  it  that  history  knows  and  hu- 
manity celebrates,  —  he  owes  these  heroes  nothing ; 
their  moral  peer,  he  is  quits  with  the  foremost  of 
them  all.  He  too  has  loved  ;  he  has  given  himself. 
Have  the  greatest  benefactors  done  more  ? 


XIII. 

AND  WISHED  FOR  DAY. 

And  wished  for  day. 

Acts  xxvii.  29. 

nr^HESE  words  are  from  the  curious  and  unques- 
"*■  tionably  faithful  narrative  of  Paul's  and  his 
companions'  shipwreck  off  the  island  of  Malta,  on 
their  way  to  Rome,  whither  Paul  was  bound  as 
prisoner,  on  his  own  appeal  to  the  imperial  court. 

Apart  from  the  high  personality  concerned  in  it, 
the  narrative  is  markworthy  as  a  picture  of  ancient 
manners,  and  as  perhaps  the  best  report  extant  of 
the  state  of  navigation  in  that  day.  The  story  of 
a  voyage  from  Cbesarea  in  Palestine  to  Puteoli  in 
the  Bay  of  Naples,  in  the  middle  of  the  first  cen- 
tury, is  a  literary  curiosity  which,  if  just  discovered 
in  some  old  manuscript,  would  be  eagerly  studied 
by  the  learned. 

In  the  course  of  this  voyage  in  a"  ship  containing 
not  far  from  three  hundred  souls,  when  drifting 
one   night   before   a   strong    gale    in   the   sea   of 


184  AND    WISHED  FOR  DAY. 

"  Adria,"  the  voj-agers  found  themselves  rapidly 
shoaling  their  \yater,  and  in  imminent  danger  of 
running  ashore  on  some  unknown  coast.  In  this 
emergency,  we  read,  "  they  cast  four  anchors  out 
of  the  stern,  and  wished  for  day." 

I  well  remember  that  when,  as  a  child  of  nine 
years,  I  studied  the  Greek  Testament  with  a  ven- 
erated teacher,  the  late  Dr.  Oilman,  of  Charleston, 
the  good  man  called  my  attention  to  the  beautiful 
simplicity  of  that  expression,  €V)(ovto  rj/jiepav  yeve- 
oOat^  —  "  they  wished  it  would  be  day."  The  phrase 
thus  impressed  on  the  mind  of  the  boy  has  often 
recurred  to  me  in  riper  years,  with  many  appli- 
cations both  of  its  literary  and  its  moral  import. 
I  have  often  contrasted  its  sublime  brevity,  its 
calm  and  continent  tone,  with  the  labored  descrip- 
tions and  tumid  phrase  of  so  many  modern  w^riters 
who,  not  content  with  stating  the  fact  or  the  feel- 
ing they  have  to  present,  give  all  its  reflections 
and  refractions,  the  coloring  it  takes  in  their  con- 
ception, and  ransack  the  vocabulary  for  fitting 
terms  by  w^hich  to  effect  a  sensation  equal  to  the 
theme.  Think  how  such  an  one  would  agonize  in 
recounting  a  scene  like  this,  —  how  he  would  di- 
late on  the  racking  suspense,  the  tortures  of  expec- 
tation endured  by  that  storm-tossed  company 
through  the  weary  hours  of  a  night  which  threat- 
ened instant  destruction,  on  the  momentary  dread 


AND    WISHED  FOR   DAY.  185 

of  the  shock  which  should  shatter  the  frail  bark 
and  engulf  her  devoted  crew,  on  the  angry  billows 
that  hungered  for  their  prey,  on  the  vision  strained 
to  catch  the  first  glimpse  of  returning  dawn,  — ■ 
all  w*hich  the  writer  of  the  Acts  conveys  in  the 
single  phrase,  "  and  wished  for  day,"  leaving  to 
the  reader's  imagination  to  conceive  what,  after 
all,  no  language  can  paint,  and  not  overwhelming 
him  with  a  flood  of  words,  which  arrest  rather  than 
stimulate  the  action  of  the  mind. 

Such  is  the  rhetoric  of  the  Acts,  a  book  which 
recounts  in  a  few  pages  some  of  the  greatest  events 
that  have  ever  happened  on  this  planet,  and  some 
of  the  sublimest  situations  ever  witnessed  by  man. 
A  severe  simplicity  pervades  the  story ;  the  tone  is 
uniformly  calm  and  even.  There  is  no  heat,  no 
swell,  no  straining  to  place  the  characters  and 
objects  in  a  striking  light,  no  aiming  at  effect,  no 
magnifying  or  eulogizing  of  the  champions  of  the 
gospel,  no  denunciation  of  their  adversaries,  no 
partisanship,  no  attempt  to  enlist  the  sympathy  of 
the  reader.  The  events  are  given  without  note  or 
comment.  There  are  the  facts.  The  reflections 
you  may  make  to  suit  yourself. 

To  return  to  the  phrase,  "  They  wished  for  day." 
How  often  in  human  life  that  wish  recurs,  —  the 
wish  for  day  in  its  literal  or  its  metaphorical  sense, 
—  light  to  the  bodily  eye  or  a  day  of  redemption  and 


186  AND    WISHED  FOR  DAY. 

consolation  to  the  over-burdened,  suffering  soul ! 
How  many  voyagers  since  Paul,  in  dark,  tempestuous 
nights,  betwixt  the  horrors  of  a  raging  sea  and  a 
lee  shore,  having  done  all  that  in  them  lay  to  guard 
themselves  from  impending  danger,  have  sat  down 
powerless,  and  wished  for  day  !  How  many  a  be- 
nighted wayfarer  in  lonely  and  uncertain  paths, 
how  many  a  weary  watcher  by  the  bed  of  the  sick, 
how  many  a  sentinel  pacing  his  round  benumbed 
with  cold,  how  many  a  soldier  left  bleeding  on  the 
field  when  the  battle  and  the  day  were  done,  how 
many  a  dweller  amid  Arctic  snows,  where  the  sun 
dips  down  for  a  night  of  months,  has  longed 
with  intense  desire  for  returning  light !  The 
Psalmist  makes  this  particular  longing  the  type 
of  all  intense  desire,  —  "-  My  soul  waiteth  for  the 
Lord  more  than  they  that  watch  for  the  morn- 
ing ;  I  say,  more  than  they  that  watch  for  the 
morning." 

The  alternation  of  day  and  night  is  felt  to  be  a 
merciful  provision  of  Nature  for  the  needs  of  body 
and  mind.  Unbroken  day  would  dry  up  the  spirit, 
and  exhaust  the  energies  of  life.  We  need  the 
relief  of  darkness  and  inaction.  The  harder  the 
life,  the  greater  that  need.  The  child  to  whom  life 
is  a  holiday  regrets  the  setting  sun ;  but  "  a  ser- 
vant," says  Job,  "earnestly  desireth  the  shadow, 
and  a  hireling  looketh  for  the  end  of  his  work." 


AND    WISHED  FOR   DAY.  187 

When  the  night  therefore  fails  of  its  legitimate 
function,  when  rest  is  denied,  is  become  impos- 
sible, then  darkness  becomes  an  intolerable  bur- 
den. And  so  most  pathetically  Job  continues, 
painting  for  all  time  the  sufferer's  unrest :  "  Wea- 
risome nights  are  appointed  to  me.  When  I  lie 
down,  I  say :  When  shall  I  arise  and  the  night 
be  gone  ?  I  am  full  of  tossings  to  and  fro,  unto 
the  dawning  of  the  day." 

There  is  a  night  which  is  not  determined  by 
sunrise  and  sunset,  nor  measured  by  watches  of 
human  appointment,  —  a  night  which  confounds 
in  one  gloom  the  hours  of  sunlight  with  those  of 
natural  darkness,  and  often  invests  the  former 
with  a  darkness  deeper  than  Nature  knows,  —  the 
night  of  sorrow.  What  life  that  reaches  but  half 
the  accepted  term  has  not  at  some  time  been  over- 
taken with  it,  has  not  been  overshadowed  and 
ingulfed  by  it !  Who  has  not  passed  through  sea- 
sons of  depression  and  gloom,  when  the  world 
to  his  vision  was  a  hopeless  blank ;  when  the 
brightest  sky  was  lead,  and  the  greenest  landscape 
a  waste,  and  life  a  burden  and  disgust ;  when  the 
night  which  might  bring  temporary  oblivion  was 
better  than  the  day,  and  returning  day,  as  it  called 
him  back  to  a  world  of  death,  was  new  night  to 
the  mind ;  when  the  sunken  and  submerged  spirit, 
with  the  feeling  that  all  the  waves  and  billows  had 


188  AND    WISHED  FOR   DAY. 

gone  over  it,  seemed  to  itself  powerless  to  contend 
with  the  flood,  and,  with  longing  more  intense 
than  that  of  Paul  and  his  companions,  "  driven  up 
and  down  in  Adria,"  wished  for  day ! 

That  we  are  not  to  have  and  enjoy  forever,  that 
suffering  is  a  necessary  ingredient  of  life,  is  a 
lesson  which  cannot  be  learned  too  soon.  *'  The 
morning  cometh,  and  also  the  night."  The  pleas- 
ures of  youth,  the  joy  of  success,  the  tongue  of 
fame,  whatever  charms  the  senses  or  cheers  the 
heart,  is  a  flower  whoso  root  is  ever  in  its  grave. 
Alternate  giving  and  taking  is  the  course  of  Provi- 
dence ;  alternation  of  joy  and  pain  is  the  lot  of 
man.  There  is  no  exemption  from  the  universal 
doom.  It  is  given  to  no  child  of  man  to  pass 
through  life  unacquainted  w^ith  grief.  Loss  and 
pain  are  appointed  for  all.  There  are  some  who 
seem  to  be  exceptionally  fortunate  and  blessed. 
Do  not  believe  that  they  are  exempt ;  that  the 
sufferings  which  do  not  appear  do  not  therefore 
exist.  The  nearer  we  come  to  our  fellow-men, 
the  more  we  find  them  troubled  and  tried.  The 
most  fortunate  have  some  private  sorrows  which 
ask  no  sympathy  and  know  no  relief,  which  are 
kept  from  the  common  eye  like  the  miser's  gold, 
to  be  told  over  and  brooded  over  in  lonely  hours 
and  secret  places. 

Evil  is  a  fixed  fact;   the  seeds  of  it  are  sown 


AND   WISHED  FOR  DAY.  189 

thick  among  all  the  choicest  flowers  of  life.  It 
ripens  with  fatal  luxuriance  where  the  smiles  of 
heaven  shine  most  benignly.  It  treads  on  the 
heels  of  abundance,  it  follows  in  the  wake  of  suc- 
cess, it  waits  on  youth  and  health,  it  is  bound  up 
with  the  choicest  treasures  of  the  heart.  It  comes 
in  the  form  of  disease,  racking  the  body  with  aches 
and  pains ;  it  comes  in  losses  and  reverses  of  for- 
tune, dissipating  substance  and  threatening  want ; 
it  comes  in  bereavements  and  disappointments,  in 
trials  of  the  affections  invading  the  family  circle 
and  casting  us  out  there  where  we  had  garnered 
up  our  heart,  where  either  we  "  must  live  or  bear 
no  life."  Somehow,  at  some  time,  it  inevitably 
comes.  Let  us  try  to  believe  that  it  comes  with 
wise  meaning  and  to  blessed  ends.  Let  us  try  to 
believe  that  unchanging  prosperity  is  no  more  con- 
ducive to  the  health  of  the  soul  than  unintermitted 
day  is  conducive  to  the  health  of  the  body.  Evil 
when  present  seems  a  needless  interruption  of 
the  peaceful  flow  of  life,  a  sharp  sword  thrust  in 
without  purpose  and  without  mercy  between  us 
and  our  joys.  But  let  any  one  look  back  on  his 
past  life  and  see  if  there  is  one  disappointment, 
one  painful  experience,  that  has  not  brought  its 
blessing,  if  in  no  other  way,  by  the  contrast  it  fur- 
nished to  the  good  which  succeeded.  God  does 
with   us  as  the   vintner  does  with  the  overladen 


190  A^'D    WISHED  FOR  DAY. 

vine ;  he  removes  a  portion  of  the  growing  fruit, 
to  perfect  the  remainder  and  preserve  the  plant. 
"  I  had  been  ruined,"  said  Themistocles,  "  had  I 
not  been  ruined."  Our  happiness  has  its  root  in 
our  unhappiness,  and  pain  is  the  parent  of  joy. 
"  Put  this  question  to  thyself,"  says  a  German 
moralist :  "  If  the  inscrutable  Infinite,  who  is  en- 
compassed with  gleaming  abysses  without  bounds, 
were  to  lay  immensity  open  to  thy  view,  and  reveal 
himself  as  he  distributes  suns  and  worlds,  great 
spirits  and  little  human  hearts,  our  days  and  some 
tears  in  them,  wouldst  thou  rise  up  out  of  thy  dust 
against  him  and  say,  '  Almighty,  be  other  than 
thou  art'?"  In  the  moral  creation,  as  in  the 
natural,  harmony  is  a  resolution  of  discords. 
What  seems  harsh  dissonance  when  heard  by  it- 
self has  meaning  and  music  for  ear  and  heart 
when  heard  in  connection  with  the  whole.  All 
earthly  wail  is  a  necessary  stave  in  that  eternal 
symphony  in  which  all  creatures  and  all  worlds 
unite,  and  whose  complex  harmonics  have  but 
one  theme,  which  the  spirit  interprets, —  God  is 
love. 

All  this  docs  not  prevent  nor  greatly  mitigate 
present  suffering.  It  does  not  prevent  evil  from 
being  evil  at  the  time,  nor  make  pain  seem  any- 
thing but  pain.  It  is  in  vain  to  talk  of  the  need 
and  blessings  of  darkness  to  one  who,  in  doubt 


AND   WISHED  FOR  DAY.  191 

and  fear  and  much  weariness,  watches  for  the 
light.  When  the  night  of  affliction  is  on  us,  we 
chafe  at  the  darkness  and  fervently  wish  for  day. 

And  day  comes  with  its  revelations  and  reliefs, 
its  new  vigor  and  newness  of  life,  as  the  natural 
day,  in  due  season,  replaces  the  longest,  darkest, 
heaviest  night.  Day  came  to  the  seamen  in  that 
night-foundered  ship  which  bore  the  Apostle  on  his 
destined  way.  It  brought  deliverance  to  every 
soul  in  that  company,  although  the  ship  ran 
aground  and  "  was  broken  with  the  violence  of  the 
waves."  It  comes  at  length,  though  long  delayed, 
to  the  ice-bound  voyager  in  Arctic  seas,  whose 
eyes  for  months  have  not  beheld  the  face  of  the 
sun.  And  the  moral  day,  the  day  of  consolation,  of 
compensation,  comes  at  length  to  all  who  sit  in  the 
shadow  of  affliction,  to  all  whose  hearts  are  dark- 
ened with  grief,  to  all  who  are  troubled  and  sorely 
.  tried.  No  man  goes  mourning  all  his  days,  though 
days  of  heaviness  and  wearisome  nights,  in  the 
order  of  God's  providence,  are  appointed  for  all. 
When  a  great  calamity  overtakes  us,  we  think,  in 
our  first  transport  and  confusion  of  spirit,  we  shall 
never  be  happy  again,  and  perhaps,  in  our  rebel- 
lious mood  and  strong  resistance  to  God's  chasten- 
ing, resolve  that  notliing  shall  tempt  us  to  believe 
any  more  in  life  and  joy.  We  embrace  Grief  as 
our  chosen   companion,   and   refuse    to    be    com- 


192  AND   WISHED  FOR  DAY. 

forted.  "  Sister  Sorrow,  sit  beside  me ! "  But 
life  and  joy  are  strong,  and  life  without  some  por- 
tion of  joy  cannot  long  subsist.  The  grieved  and 
angered  child  hides  his  face  in  his  hands,  and 
will  not  look  into  liis  mother's  eyes,  and  spurns 
her  proffered  caress;  but  the  mother,  with  wise 
adaptation  to  the  cliildish  mood,  surprising  his 
attention  and  diverting  his  thought  from  himself, 
at  last  prevails.  The  little  recusant  first  peeps 
from  his  covert,  then  withdraws  the  blockade  of 
the  uplifted  arm,  and  gradually  surrenders  and 
breaks  into  smiles.  So  the  great  Mother  Nature, 
or  so  the  divine  Comforter,  prevails  at  last  over 
all  the  obstinacy  of  cherished  grief.  Life  and  joy 
are  strong ;  consolation  will  gradually  steal  into 
the  heart.  "  The  light  of  smiles  will  beam  again 
from  lids  that  now  overflow  with  tears." 

The  heart  is  rich  in  resources  and  medicinal 
virtues  and  recuperative  powers,  and  is  seldom 
crushed  beyond  recovery  while  life  endures.  Where 
one  flower  withered,  another  springs  in  its  place. 
When  one  fountain  is  dried  up,  another  gushes 
and  fertilizes  and  makes  glad  the  heart.  Cher- 
ished possessions  are  rent  from  us,  but  new  and 
better  treasures  are  amassed.  Old  comforts  per- 
ish, but  the  Comforter  is  always  near ;  and  though 
hope  after  hope  is  extinguished,  hope  springs  eter- 
nal in  the  breast.     We  cannot  wear  sackcloth  all 


AND    WISHED  FOR   DAY.  193 

our  years.  The  wished-for  day  of  consolation 
comes  to  all  who  mourn,  to  all  who  are  tried,  if 
not  in  the  way  of  restoration  and  escape,  then  in 
the  way  of  resignation  and  the  peace  "  that  passeth 
understanding"  which  resignation  brings.  Every 
one  in  battling  with  adversity  uses  the  means 
which  Providence  has  placed  in  his  power.  When 
our  vessel  is  stranded,  we  all  seek  safety  in  the 
way  which  instinct  prompts,  or  necessity  com- 
pels, or  wisdom  or  religion  dictates.  Some  seize  a 
plank  from  the  wreck,  and  endeavor  to  secure 
themselves  with  a  remnant  of  their  fortunes. 
Some  join  hands  and  find  support  in  mutual  coun- 
sel and  consolation.  Some  beat  the  waves  with 
desperate  strength,  and  find  forgetfulness  in  ac- 
tivity. And  some  yield  themselves  up  with  pas- 
sive endurance,  and  float  with  face  toward  heaven, 
till  heaven  shall  send  them  succor.  The  last 
method,  if  it  does  not  always  bring  deliverance, 
will  always  bring  peace,  — the  peace  which  springs 
from  perfect  trust. 

Verily,  the  light  is  sweet.  There  are  those  to 
whom  the  face  of  the  natural  day  is  denied.  The 
blind  behold  not  the  pleasant  light  of  the  sun,  and 
there  are  prisoners  immured  in  penal  cells  which 
no  ray  from  without  can  pierce.  But  the  moral 
day,  the  day  of  comfort  and  compensation,  is  per- 
manently denied  to  none.     No  darkness  so  intense 

13 


194  AND    WISHED  FOR   DAY. 

that  it  will  not  illumine,  no  wall  of  sorrow  so  tliick 
through  which  it  cannot  find  its  way.  It  comes  to 
all,  if  not  from  circumstance  and  external  relief, 
then  from  the  inner,  mysterious  recesses  of  the 
mind  musing  till  the  fire  burns.  It  comes,  —  first 
the  faint  dawn  of  an  uncertain,  trembling  hope, 
then  the  rosy  flush  of  rising  morn,  and  finally  the 
perfect  day.  Whoever  looks  steadfastly  within 
will  find  day,  will  find  the  power  which  is  given 
to  man  over  circumstance  and  all  the  contradic- 
tions of  earth  and  time.  There  remain  to  all  the 
satisfactions  of  duty.  There  is  no  situation  with- 
out its  duties,  and  no  duty  so  humble  that  has  not 
its  reward.  In  the  very  struggle  with  the  power 
of  evil  there  is  a  blessedness  beyond  the  gifts  of 
fortune. 

For  all  that  live  there  is  good  in  store,  —  no 
wound  so  angry  or  so  deep,  but  all-healing  time 
will  bring  its  balm.  Say  not,  I  shall  carry  this  sor- 
row to  the  grave,  I  shall  never  be  happy  more.  It  is 
not  so  written  in  the  book  of  fate.  From  the  foun- 
dation of  the  world,  it  is  ordained  that  sorrow  and 
joy  shall  alternate  in  the  lot  of  man.  Say  not. 
There  is  no  day  for  me ;  but  look  up  from  the 
wreck  of  perished  hopes  and  see  to  what  a  world 
you  belong.  See  written  upon  every  creation  of 
God  the  primal  gospel  of  love.  All  things  exhort 
to  hope  ;  the  blue  sky  bends  over  all.     Day  after 


AND    WISHED  FOR  DAY.  195 

day,  the  sun  goes  forth  rejoicing  and  giving  joy. 
Night  after  night,  the  stars  look  down  from  their 
tranquil  seats  and  smile  on  man's  estate.  Year 
after  year,  the  constant  seasons  bring  their  gifts. 
Nature  comes  and  goes,  and  all  things  are  full  of 
beauty  and  blessing.  Is  this  a  world  to  dash 
against  with  our  impatience  and  bedim  with  our 
tears?  Would  you  overcome  evil  and  extract  its 
sting,  look  it  fairly  in  the  face  and  seek  to  compre- 
hend it,  and  know  that  whatsoever  thing  you  have 
seen  through  and  thoroughly  dissolved  in  your 
comprehension  can  harm  you  no  longer.  Evil  is 
evil  only  till  it  is  understood.  Then  it  is  lifted 
up  like  the  serpent  in  the  wilderness,  the  remem- 
brance of  injury  without  its  bitterness. 

The  day  of  redemption  comes  to  all.  There  is 
no  situation  in  human  life  that  can  shut  it  out. 
Imagine  a  condition  the  most  forlorn  the  mind 
can  conceive,  —  the  case  of  a  prisoner  immured 
for  life  in  a  solitary  cell.  The  first  feeling  of  one 
so  doomed  would  be  utter  despair.  But  if  life 
can  withstand  the  pressure,  if  the  light  of  the 
mind  go  not  out  in  idiocy  or  madness,  the  day  even 
there  will  dawn  at  last.  The  wretch,  cut  off  from 
the  world  and  all  hope  of  redemption  from  without, 
would  be  thrown  upon  himself,  upon  the  inner  world 
of  the  mind.  And  there  he  would  find  w^hat  all  find 
who  seriously  commune  with  tlieir  own  heart, — 


196  AND   WISHED  FOR  DAY, 

the  presence  of  that  God  whom  no  prison  can  ex- 
clude, and  with  whom  no  edict  can  forbid  commu- 
nication. And  though  the  God  so  found  might 
seem  at  first  a  merciless,  pitiless  power,  seeing  he 
could  leave  a  human  being  so  forlorn,  persistent 
thought  and  the  teachings  of  the  spirit  would  cor- 
rect that  judgment,  would  disentangle  the  tough 
knot  of  fate  ;  and  then  the  presence  of  that  solo 
companion  would  dispense  a  delicious  solace,  would 
people  the  deep  solitude  with  holy,  happy  thoughts, 
would  supplement  the  shrivelled  world  of  the 
dungeon  with  his  own  sufficiency,  would  give  the 
freedom  which  man  had  denied,  would  pierce 
the  solid  walls  with  heavenly  transparencies,  and 
shed  exceeding  day  on  the  soul.  No  miscliance 
can  close  against  us  the  door  of  prayer.  Wher- 
ever we  may  be,  into  whatever  deepest  abyss  of 
sorrow  we  may  be  thrown  prostrate  and  bleed- 
ing, it  needs  but  an  effort  of  thought,  and  we 
rest  in  the  bosom  of  the  Father  and  feci  our- 
selves girt  about  with  his  protection  as  with  a 
garment.  We  think  of  Omnipotence,  and  our 
weakness  is  made  strength  ;  of  unerring  wisdom, 
and  perplexity  is  no  more ;  of  infinite  love,  and 
sorrow  is  blessing. 

Rightly  considered,  the  wish  for  day  is  the  deep- 
est, dearest  wish  of  the  human  heart.  For  is  not 
all  that  is  dearest  in  life  symbolized  by  it  ?     Day 


AND   WISHED  FOR  DAY.  197 


is  victory,  day  is  redemption.  Freedom,  action, 
aspiration,  growth,  guidance,  courage,  safety, 
liealth,  belong  to  the  day.  Limitation,  bondage, 
obstruction,  danger,  fear,  disease,  are  children  of 
the  night.  The  author  of  the  Book  of  Revelation, 
depicting  the  city  of  God,  the  New  Jerusalem  of 
Christian  expectation  which  he  saw  in  his  vision, 
says,  "  There  shall  be  no  night  there."  Mortal 
infirmity  bound  to  an  intermittent,  spasmodic  life, 
requires  alternation  of  light  with  shade,  —  requires 
intervals  of  darkness,  temporary  oblivion,  tempo- 
rary death.  But  the  new-born  spirit  braced  by  the 
air  of  heaven  is  figured  capable  of  eternal  noon. 
Eyes  without  heaviness,  action  without  weariness, 
fruition  without  satiety,  life  deepening  as  it  flows 
into  life  more  abundant,  are  supposed  to  be  the 
habit  of  the  heavenly  world  ;  and  that  vision  of 
the  seer  from  age  to  age  has  been  the  mark 
and  prize  of  Christian  faith.  Of  life  and  light, 
faith  fears  no  excess.  But  who  can  bear  the 
thought  of  eternal  night  ?  Who  so  surfeited  with 
day  as  to  face,  without  a  pang,  the  idea  of  sink- 
ing down,  down,  into  endless  darkness  and  dream- 
less sleep  ?  To  the  wish  for  day,  all  hearts  re- 
spond. In  the  universality  of  that  wish  lies  a 
presage  of  immortality.  Well,  then,  may  our  faith 
in  the  day  be  as  broad  as  our  desire !  Next  to 
faith  in  God,  no  faith  is  more  essential  than  faith 


198  AND    WISHED  FOR  DAY, 

in  to-morrow,  —  faith  that  no  night  can  ever  fall 
that  shall  not  bear  a  morrow  in  its  train,  that 
even  the  great  night,  which  bounds  our  earthly 
days  itself  is  bounded  by  a  morrow  that  is  not 
of  this  world. 


XIV. 

ALL   THINGS   TO   ALL  MEK 

I  am  made  all  things  to  all  men,  that  I  might  by  all 
means  save  some,  1  Cor.  ix.  22. 

^T7ITH  this  phrase,  Saint  Paul  designates  a 
policy  of  compromise,  of  concession  to  the 
weaknesses  and  prejudices  of  his  contemporaries, 
which  he  saw  fit  to  practise  in  the  exercise  of  his 
mission. 

How  far,  for  mankind  in  general,  is  such  a 
policy  lawful  or  wise  ? 

Compromise  in  some  things,  to  some  extent,  is 
unavoidable.  A  straight  course  is  not  always 
practicable,  and,  when  practicable,  is  not  always 
the  best  course.  There  are  concessions  which  we 
have  to  make,  whether  we  will  or  not,  to  obstacles 
beyond  our  control.  In  crossing  a  rapid  stream, 
the  boatman  does  not  strike  a  straight  line  from 
shore  to  shore,  but  effects  his  landing  by  a  middle 
course,  conquering  so  much  by  muscular  force 
and  yielding  so  much  to  the  sweep  of  the  current. 


200  ALL    THINGS   TO  ALL  MEN. 

So,  in  the  world  of  society,  we  cannot  always  go 
straight  to  our  mark  ;  we  have  to  content  our- 
selves with  an  indirect  action.  A  man  proposes  to 
himself  a  certain  end,  in  the  prosecution  of  which 
he  encounters  obstacles.  Opposing  forces  cross 
his  path,  and  prevent  liim  from  accomplishing  all 
that  he  designed.  But  he  accomplishes  some- 
thing, his  efforts  do  not  entirely  fail ;  he  achieves 
at  least  an  oblique  success. 

In  this  sense  our  mortal  life  is  a  perpetual  com- 
promise, the  resultant  of  two  conflicting  forces, — 
our  own  will  being  one,  and  circumstance  the 
other,  —  a  compromise  between  the  ideal  in  our 
mind  and  the  pressure  of  our  lot.  No  man's  life 
is  all  that  he  aims  to  make  it.  We  gain  some- 
thing by  our  efforts,  and  yield  something  to  the 
force  of  the  stream.  We  describe  a  diagonal  be- 
tween the  direction  of  our  idea  and  the  push  of  the 
time.  Then  there  are  compromises  of  courtesy, 
concessions  to  custom  and  convention,  in  matters 
in  which  no  moral  principle  is  involved.  No  wise 
man  will  make  himself  conspicuous  by  oddities  of 
dress  or  behavior,  for  the  mere  satisfaction  of 
having  his  own  way.  No  man  living  in  society 
and  keeping  friendly  terms  with  society,  can  in- 
dulge his  private  taste  without  limit  where  his 
private  taste  is  in  violent  conflict  with  the  com- 
mon use. 


ALL    THINGS    TO  ALL   MEN.  201 

But  now  we  come  to  compromises  of  another 
sort,  —  compromises  in  which  men  yield  up  their 
own  convictions  of  truth  and  right  to  the  prejudices 
of  others,  concessions  to  the  errors  and  weaknesses 
of  our  fellow-men. 

This  is  the  kind  of  compromise  which  Paul  ac- 
knowledges when  he  says,  "  To  the  weak  became  I 
as  weak  ...  I  am  made  all  things  to  all  men."  It 
is  impossible  not  to  respect  the  motive  by  which 
the  Apostle  was  actuated  in  the  concessions  he  saw 
fit  to  make,  but  it  may  be  questioned  how  far  the 
principle  on  which  he  acted  is  a  safe  one  for  usT 
And  this  we  may  be  permitted  to  say,  —  contem- 
plating Paul's  history  from  this  distance  of  time, 
without  disparagement  of  his  inestimable  ser- 
vice,—  that  this  accommodation  to  the  weakness 
of  his  countrymen  is  not  the  feature  of  his  charac- 
ter w^hich  claims  our  highest  regard  and  attracts 
us  most  strongly  to  the  story  of  his  life.  It  is  not 
as  the  dexterous  navigator  between  the  jutting 
headlands  and  frowning  incompatibilities  of  Jewish 
and  Gentile  customs,  it  is  not  as  the  compromiser 
between  old  tradition  and  the  new  creation  in  Jesus 
Christ,  but  as  the  conscientious  and  unhesitating 
champion  of  the  truth  he  had  once  denied,  as  the 
never-flinching  and  never-wearying  w^itness  of 
Christ  in  the  face  of  persecution  and  death,  that 
we  venerate   that  sacred  memory.     It  is  not  the 


202  ALL    THINGS    TO  ALL   MEN. 

Paul  who  knew  so  well  to  adapt  his  conduct  to  the 
prejudices  of  his  contemporaries,  who  could  humor 
the  weak  and  be  all  things  to  all  men,  but  the 
Paul  who  counted  all  things  but  dross  for  the  ex- 
cellence of  the  knowledge  of  Christ ;  the  Paul 
w^ho  went  to  Damascus  the  scourge  of  the  Chris- 
tians, and  returned  their  leader,  not  disobedient  to 
the  heavenly  vision ;  the  Paul  who,  in  spite  of 
warnings  and  entreaties,  pressed  on  to  Jerusalem 
to  meet  his  doom,  not  counting  his  life  dear  unto 
himself,  so  he  might  finish  the  ministry  he  liad 
received  of  the  Lord  Jesus,  —  this  is  the  Paul 
whom  we  canonize  in  our  regard. 

Paul  knew  very  well  that  the  ritual  of  the  law 
must  come  to  an  end,  and  had  already  come  to  an 
end  in  principle  for  tlie  followers  of  Jesus ;  yet  he 
was  willing  to  practise  it  for  his  own  part  in  the 
presence  of  those  who  fancied  it  binding.  To 
those  who  were  weak  enough  to  be  troubled  by 
its  neglect,  he  became  as  weak,  and  conformed  to 
a  standard  other  than  his  own.  I  do  not  presume 
to  arraign  the  policy  of  Paul  in  so  doing.  Who  of 
us  is  competent  for  that  ?  Yet  it  has  seemed  to 
me,  viewing  the  matter  at  this  distance,  that  if 
Paul  had  continued  to  the  last  to  maintain,  as  he 
did  in  his  letter  to  the  Galatians,  the  sufficiency 
of  the  gospel  without  the  works  of  the  law,  or, 
rather,  if  he  had  uniformly  exemplified  that  posi- 


ALL    THINGS   TO  ALL  MEN.  203 

tion  in  practice  as  he  asserted  it  in  theory  ;  if  he 
had  planted  himself  immovably  on  the  Christian 
idea  of  a  spiritual  religion,  where  neither  circum- 
cision availeth  anything  nor  uncircumcision,  and 
had  said  to  the  claims  and  traditions  of  the  law : 
"  Get  you  hence,  '  beggarly  elements ' !  Vanish  ! 
Become  extinct !  More  than  a  thousand  years  we 
have  had  of  your  hard  service,  —  a  yoke  which  nei- 
ther our  fathers  were  able  to  bear  nor  we ;  and 
now  that  we  have  come  into  the  liberty  wherewith 
Christ  hath  made  us  free,  we  will  be  no  longer 
entangled  with  the  yoke  of  that  bondage.  See,  we 
have  done  with  you  forever :  "  —  if  Paul  had  taken 
this  stand  in  relation  to  Judaism,  it  has  seemed  to 
me  that  the  progress  of  Christianity  would  have 
been  no  whit  retarded  in  the  end,  while  an  exam- 
ple would  thus  have  been  given  of  inflexible  resist- 
ance to  spiritual  bondage,  which  is  quite  as  much 
needed  as  examples  of  compliance.  Turn  to  the 
Acts  of  the  Apostles,  and  see  with  how  pathetic 
a  retribution  this  policy  of  compromise  miscarried 
at  last  to  a  fatal  ending.  It  was  an  act  of  compli- 
ance, instigated  by  his  Jewish  friends  on  his  last 
visit  to  Jerusalem,  that  proved  the  occasion  of  his 

arrest,  his  long  captivity,  and  death.^^,,^— " 

"  I  am  made  all  things  to  all  men."  The  world 
is  indebted  to  Paul  as  to  few  others  in  its  book  of 
worthies.     For  many  a  strong  word  of  divine  wis- 


/ 


^ 


204  AI^L    THINGS   TO  ALL  MEN, 

dom  and  many  a  brave  act,  we  have  to  thank  him ; 
but  this  is  not  one  of  them.  Apostolic  authority 
was  not  needed  to  sanction  a  compliance  to  which 
human  weakness  so  readil}^  tends.  Unhappily,  no 
saying  of  Paul  is  more  readily  quoted  than  this 
confession,  and  no  practice  of  Paul  more  often  put 
forward  than  this  accommodation.  How  often 
have  we  heard  some  politic  person,  in  whom  was 
no  strong  conviction  of  any  moral  or  political  truth, 
and  no  aim  in  life  but  personal  success,  whose 
chief  care  was  to  slip  through  the  world  without 
friction,  without  conflict  of  opinion,  without  im- 
pinging on  any  man's  prejudices,  —  some  bland 
companion  who  always  consents  and  concedes,  is 
always  of  the  same  way  of  thinking  as  those  he 
converses  with,  and  has  no  negative  in  his  mental 
repertory,  —  how  often  have  we  heard  such  an  one, 
with  spirit  and  purpose  as  far  from  Paul's  as  the 
children  of  this  world  from  the  children  of  light, 
quote  Paul's  authority  for  being  all  things  to  all 
men,  and  really  seem  to  take  credit  to  himself  for 
this  oily  accommodation,  as  if  it  were  some  ex- 
quisite grace  by  virtue  of  which  he  had  come  to 
stand  in  apostolic  succession ! 

It  needs  no  apostle  to  teach  accommodation. 
Non-conformity  is  not  the  vice  of  society.  It  is 
the  vice  of  here  and  there  a  churl,  whose  angu- 
lar nature  refuses  to  adjust  itself  with  any  other 


ALL    THINGS    TO  ALL   MEN.  205 

nature,  or  any  usage  or  convention,  but  rubs 
and  grinds  in  all  its  intercourse  with  the  world. 
Some  impracticable  recusants  there  are,  whose 
ungracious  temper  bristles  with  objections,  and 
can  only  exist  in  an  atmosphere  of  hostility.  But 
it  is  not  the  vice  of  society.  It  is  not  smoothness 
that  society  lacks,  —  smooth  enough  already  for 
the  moral  health  of  those  who  compose  it,  —  not 

smoothness,  but  conscience,  conviction,  sincerit;^; 

It  sounds  wise  and  humane  to  talk  of  being  all  j 
things  to  all  men,  after  the  example  of  Saint  Paul,  i 
But  see  if  you  have  the  same  motive  which  Paul  / 
had  in  his  concessions.  Is  it  that  you  may  win 
men  to  the  truth  and  their  own  eternal  good  ?  Or 
is  it  that  you  may  win  them  for  yourself,  and  make 
them  auxiliary  to  your  success  ?  Is  it  that  you 
may  be  useful  to  your  fellow-men  or  only  that  you 
may  be  popular  ?  It  is  easy  to  be  all  things  to 
all  men  for  one  who  has  no  strong  convictions  and 
no  fixed  principles  of  his  own.  But  what  does  it 
amount  to,  —  this  universal  complaisance,  —  and 
what  is  the  end  of  it  ?  It  ends  in  being  nothing 
to  any  man  ;  in  representing  no  truth,  no  principle, 
no  fact,  nothing  that  any  one  can  grasp  and  lay 
hold  of,  and  feel  that  he  has  hold  of  something 
substantial.  It  ends  in  being  a  nonentity,  so  far  as 
any  fixed  position  or  personal  influence  is  con- 
cerned,—  not  a  man  standing  upon  two  feet  and 


206  ALL    THINGS    TO  ALL   MEN. 

filling  so  much  space,  be  it  more  or  less,  with 
solid  substance,  but  an  apparition,  a  thing  without 
a  backbone,  which  a  man  can  pass  his  hand  through 
and  feel  no  resistance.  Your  business  is  not  to  be 
all  things  to  all  men,  but  to  be  something  to  some- 
body,—  to  stand  for  something  definite,  to  repre- 
sent some  idea  or  principle,  so  that  men  may  count 
upon  you  in  that  one  thing,  and  set  you  down  good 
for  so  much.  "  He  who  does  not  withstand,"  says 
Coleridge,  "  has  no  standing  place." 

Compliance  is  amiable,  it  makes  social  inter- 
course easy ;  but  non-compliance,  harsh  and 
crabbed  though  it  seem,  would  often  be  healthier 
for  your  brother  and  you, — healthier  for  your 
brother,  for  men  are  not  served  by  humoring  their 
weaknesses  and  prejudices.  We  make  them  no 
stronger  by  so  doing.  We  do  not  take  their  weak- 
nesses and  prejudices  out  of  them,  and  put  health 
and  reason  into  them.  We  rather  confirm  them  in 
their  prepossessions.  It  may  be  that  these  are  the 
very  things  in  their  mental  condition  which  most 
need  to  be  cast  out  of  them,  and  which  unless  they 
are  rid  of  they  can  never  reach  their  full  stature 
and  occupy  their  talents  with  the  best  effect.  It 
may  be  that  what  they  most  need  is  to  encounter 
opposition,  to  have  their  prejudices  shocked,  to 
experience  a  revulsion,  to  be  arrested  in  their 
humdrum,  traditionary,  taking-for-granted  way  of 


ALL    THINGS   TO  ALL  MEN.  207 

looking  at  things,  to  be  set  a-thinking,  if  haply  a 
new  vision  of  spiritual  verities  may  dawn  on  their 
souls.  -- — 

Healthier  for  ourselves  is  non-conformity  with 
views  we  do  not  approve.  It  was  possible  for  Paul 
to  become  as  weak  to  the  weak  without  sacrificing  y  fAj 
anything  of  his  manhood  thereby.  But  it  needst/' 
the  strength  of  Paul  to  practise  this  conception 
without  being  harmed  by  it.  The  danger  is  that, 
in  making  ourselves  weak  to  them  that  are  weak 
for  a  given  exigency,  we  stay  weak  when  the 
exigency  is  past. 

Paul  practised  on  a  certain  occasion  a  rite  which 
he  did  not  regard  as  binding,  "  because,"  as  we 
read,  "  of  the  Jews  which  were  in  those  quarters." 
But,  for  us,  I  think  we  do  not  wisely  when  we  act 
contrary  to  our  own  views,  "  because  of  the  Jews 
which  are  in  those  quarters,"  —  for  fear,  that  is,  of 
what  may  be  thought  of  us  by  those  who  are  not 
of  our  party  or  sect.  There  are  always  "  Jews  in 
those  quarters,"  when  men  are  disposed  to  seek 
tlieir  rule  of  action  out  of  themselves ;  and  if  once 
we  set  ourselves  to  square  our  conduct  with  a  for- 
eign standard,  we  shall  make  but  little  progress  in 
any  mission  of  our  own.  Twist  not  your  lips  to 
catch  the  charm  of  a  strange  shibboleth,  however 
it  may  charm  in  others. 

To  this  effect,  I  read  the  example  and  the  life  of 


ALL    THINGS   TO  ALL  MEN. 


Christ.  And  when,  in  view  of  a  timid  and  accom- 
modating policy,  I  wish  to  refresh  my  faith  in  a 
contrary  course,  I  bring  before  me  the  example  of 
the  Master.  I  call  to  mind  how  he,  so  meek  and 
gentle,  refused  to  comply  with  the  rules  and  tradi- 
tions of  the  elders  when  they  clashed  with  his  own 
conceptions  of  truth  and  right ;  and  how,  with  no 
human  authority  to  back  him,  he  drove  the  plough- 
share of  his  word  right  through  the  conventions  of 
his  time,  and  made  him  a  straight  furrow  in  a 
crooked  and  evil  world.  Pure  and  devout  as  no 
other  before  or  since,  he  incurred  the  reproacli  of 
being  a  Sabbath-breaker,  a  friend  of  wine-bibbers 
and  sinners.  Said  one  of  his  disciples,  "  Knowest 
thou  that  the  Pharisees  were  offended  after  they 
heard  this  saying  ? "  The  answer  was,  "  Every 
plant  which  my  Heavenly  Father  hath  not  planted 
shall  be  rooted  up." 

Among  the  minor  martyrdoms  which  he  must 
be  prepared  to  undergo  who  means  to  be  true  to 
his  own  convictions,  to  follow  his  own  idea,  is  the 
pain  of  being  misunderstood  and  misjudged,  looked 
upon  with  suspicion  and  mistrust  by  those  whom 
he  respects,  whose  good  opinion  he  most  values. 
Nowhere  is  this  martyrdom,  the  penalty  of  moral 
independence,  more  likely  to  be  incurred  than  in 
this  boasted  land  of  liberty,  where  deference  to 
opinion,  social,  political,  ecclesiastical,  imposes  a 


ALL    THINGS   TO  ALL  MEN.  209 

restraint  as  real  as  the  constitutional  forms  of 
oppression  and  suppression  in  other  lands,  and 
where  Siberias  of  informal  banishment  —  what  we 
call  "  left  out  in  the  cold  "  —  await  the  dissenter 
from  the  platform  of  his  party  or  sect. 

Not  to  be  as  weak  to  the  weak  and  all  things  to 
all  men,  but  to  be  strong,  if  possible,  in  the  inde- 
pendent exercise  of  our  own  judgment,  in  the 
power  to  obey  our  own  vision ;  not  afraid  to  call 
our  souls  our  own,  and  to  exercise  the  right  of 
property  in  them,  —  is  the  rule,  not  only  of  self- 
respect,  but  of  final  success. 

I  have  all  along  supposed  that  we  act  conscien- 
tiously, that  we  follow  the  law  of  right  as  it  is 
WTitten  in  our  hearts.  If  any  one  thinks  to  draw 
from  this  doctrine  a  license  to  follow  a  lawless 
impulse,  regardless  of  right  or  wrong ;  if  any  one 
uses  it  as  a  dispensation  to  affront  the  wholesome 
uses  of  society  for  the  sake  of  contradiction  or  self- 
ish ease,  —  he  perverts  it  to  his  own  damnation. 
My  doctriiie  is  not  that  a  man  be  wilful,  but  self- 
governed  ;  not  that  he  be  singular,  but  that  he 
judge  for  himself  w^hat  is  right.  If  the  wrong  way 
is  none  the  less  wrong,  so,  too,  the  right  way  is 
none  the  less  right,  because  many  walk  in  it.  If 
we  may  not  follow  the  multitude  to  do  evil,  there 
is  no  reason  why  we  should  not  keep  them  company 
in  doing  good.     We  will  rejoice  in  their  fellowship 

14 


210  ALL    THINGS    TO  ALL  MEN. 

so  long  as  we  can  walk  together  with  safety  to 
ourselves ;  and  when  our  ways  divide,  we  will 
part  company  in  peace.  The  world  is  wide ;  and 
many  thousand  are  the  paths  that  track  its  spread- 
ing plains  and  bridge  its  huge  chasms  and  tunnel 
its  everlasting  hills,  all  worn  smooth  by  custom, 
trodden,  beaten,  paved,  and  sinning.  But  in  the 
moral  world  only  one  path,  and  it  may  be  a  path 
that  is  yet  to  be  made,  can  ever  lead  us  to  light 
and  peace. 

Ah  !  grant  me,  Spirit  of  Truth,  to  find  that  way, 
and  to  know  that  I  have  found  it ;  and  I  will  walk 
in  it,  trusting  and  rejoicing,  though  I  walk  alone, 
knowing  that  I  am  not  alone,  because  the  Father  is 
with  me. 


XV. 

STEENGTH   IN  WEAKNESS. 

For  when  I  am  iveak,  then  am  I  strong, 

2  Cor.  xii.  10. 

TDAUL  spoke  from  the  depths  of  his  private  ex- 
perience when  he  said  this ;  but  this  personal 
experience  of  his  is  a  universal  experience,  or  ex- 
presses a  truth  of  universal  application. 

A  "thorn  in  the  flesh,"  some  bodily  infirmity, 
or  it  may  be  some  temptation,  the  true  nature  of 
which  it  is  impossible  to  determine,  was  given 
him  lest  he  "  should  be  exalted  above  measure." 
He  besought  that  it  might  be  taken  from  him, 
but  was  comforted  with  the  assurance  that  the 
power  of  Christ  —  that  is,  the  power  of  the  spirit, 
the  highest  moral  power  —  was  perfected,  dis- 
played to  perfection  in  that  very  weakness.  "  Most 
gladly,  therefore,"  he  said,  "  will  I  rather  glory 
in  my  infirmities,  that  the  power  of  Christ  may 
rest  upon  me.  Therefore  I  take  pleasure  in  infir- 
mities, in  reproaches,  in  necessities,  in  persecu- 
tions, in  distresses  for  Christ's  sake:  for  when  I 
am  weak,  then  am  I  strong." 


212  STRENGTH  IN  WEAKNESS. 

Certainly,  if  ever  man  deserved  to  be  called 
strong  in  his  own  might,  in  the  indomitable  force 
of  his  own  character  and  will,  it  was  Paul,  —  a 
man  of  unquestionable  power,  and  a  very  rare  kind 
of  power,  and  one  which  in  its  kind  has  never  been 
surpassed  ;  a  man  to  whose  insight  and  energy 
and  toil  and  self-sacrificing  spirit  the  establish- 
ment and  promulgation  of  Christianity,  as  we  un- 
derstand it,  is  mainly  due,  and  without  whose 
efforts,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  the  confession  of 
Christ  would  have  been  nothing  more  than  a  spe- 
cies of  Judaism,  and  as  such,  would  have  perished 
with  the  dissolution  of  the  Jewish  State.  See 
what  a  different  thing  Christianity  becomes  the 
moment  Paul  takes  it  in  hand,  —  how  from  a  local, 
sectarian  creed  it  becomes  a  universal,  cosmopoli- 
tan faith,  ample  as  the  heavens,  and  like  them  em- 
bracing all  tongues  and  climes  in  its  world-wide 
scope !  See  with  what  prophetic  daring  he  bursts 
the  bands  of  the  Past  and  the  miserable  confine- 
ment of  Judaism  which  were  choking  the  infant 
"Word,  and  leads  it  forth  from  the  walls  of  Jeru- 
salem into  the  world's  broad  day  to  shine  equally 
like  that  for  Jew  and  Gentile,  bond  and  free. 
Divest  him  of  those  sacred  associations  which  the 
Christian  Church  connects  with  his  name,  judge 
him  by  the  standard  of  pure  humanity,  and  Paul 
must  be  acknowledged  to  be  one  of  the  strongest 
of  the  sons  of  men. 


STRENGTH  IN    WEAKNESS.  213 

He  does  not  affect  to  disclaim  the  service  he  had 
rendered  to  the  Christian  cause  by  his  efforts ;  he 
is  deeply  conscious  of  the  worth  of  his  work.  "  I 
labored,"  he  says,  "more  abundantly  than  they 
all."  But  he  makes  less  account  of  his  active 
efforts,  of  the  strength  displayed  in  his  activities, 
than  he  does  of  that  passive  and  divine  strength 
which  was  manifest  in  his  trials  and  sufferings. 
He  felt  that  the  power  which  works  in  us  to  will 
and  to  do  in  our  activity  may  be  even  more  sig- 
nally shown  in  our  passive  states, —  made  apparent 
to  the  world  in  our  power  of  endurance,  or  re- 
vealed to  ourselves  in  those  internal  experiences 
of  which  the  world  knows  nothing,  but  which  nev- 
ertheless constitute  the  more  important  part  of 
our  life. 

There  are  seasons  of  infirmity  which  happen  to 
all ;  there  are  passages  of  suffering  in  every  life,  — 
they  may  be  of  the  body  or  they  may  be  of  the 
mind,  they  may  spring  from  outward  pressure  or 
internal  defect,  —  which  furnish  the  topics  and 
occasion  of  a  strength  unwitnessed  in  action,  and 
which  action  alone  can  never  impart.  How  great 
and  glorious  soever  the  strength  exerted  in  action 
by  the  able  and  the  strong,  a  more  impressive, 
more  effective  and  divine  strength  is  that  which 
is  sometimes  manifest  in  weakness,  in  depression, 
and  suffering.     The  apostolic  paradox  is  as  true 


214  STRENGTH  IN   WEAKNESS. 

of  all  the  truly  great  and  good  as  it  was  of  Paul, 
— when  they  were  weak,  they  were  strong.  I  know 
of  no  higher  test  of  greatness  than  this,  no  better 
criterion  by  which  to  discriminate  the  true  from 
the  false. 

To  this  class  of  strengths  which  are  perfected 
in  weakness,  belongs  pre-eminently  the  strength  of 
the  martyr,  —  the  strength  developed  in  noble  na- 
tures by  persecution  and  suffering.  This  martyr- 
power  is  specifically  the  mightiest  agent  that  has 
ever  wrought  in  human  affairs.  It  is  the  prime 
condition  of  the  moral  world.  All  civilization  is 
founded  upon  it.  Every  step  in  the  progress  of 
society  is  based  on  martyrdom  of  one  or  another 
kind  and  degree.  For  when  was  there  ever  a  new 
truth  proposed,  or  a  new  impulse  given  to  society, 
that  did  not  provoke  persecution.  And  the  im- 
pulse given,  and  the  good  gained,  has  generally 
been  proportioned  to  the  suffering  endured  in  its 
behalf.  We  need  not  look  far  for  illustration. 
Our  own  New  England,  so  favored  in  all  social 
and  moral  advantages,  rich  beyond  most  parts  of 
the  earth  in  all  that  is  most  essential  to  human 
well  being,  is  the  fruit  of  martyrdom,  —  a  fruit 
whose  seed  was  sown  in  weakness  and  want  and 
hardship  and  death,  to  be  raised  in  power  and 
glory,  —  the  fruit  of  the  persecuted  Puritans,  in 
whom  a  divine  strength  of  the  spirit  was  perfected 


STRENGTH  IN   WEAKNESS.  215 

in  civil  and  material  weakness.     We  are  living  on 
their   sorrows,  we  are   nourished  bj  their  blood. 
Universal  Christendom,  with  all  the  unspeakable 
and   incalculable    blessings   which   connect   them- 
selves with  the  Christian  faith,  is  the  product  of 
martyr  lives  and   deaths.      Planted  in  weakness, 
and  watered  with  tears  and  blood  from  age  to  age, 
it  has  grown  to  be  the  strength  and  hope  of  the 
world.     To  trace  the  progress  of  Christian  truth 
is  to  call  up  before  us  an  interminable  series  of 
brave  and  patient  spirits  who  have  offered  up  their 
lives  in  its  service.     Each  individual  in  that  sacred 
host  wrought  well  in  his  place  and  was  strong  in 
action;   for  the  power  to  bear  implies  the  power 
to  act,  as  the  greater  implies  the  less.     But  their 
greatest  strength,  that  by  which  they  have  become 
the  leaders  and  saviors  of  the  world,  was  born  of 

weakness  and  perfected  through  suffering, the 

strength  of  the  tried  and  the  persecuted.  As  the 
highest  instance  in  this  kind,  the  Church  adores 
the  Leader  of  that  band,— the  divine  man  in 
whom  this  strength  was  supreme.  In  the  life  of 
Christ  are  recorded  many  wonderful  works,  mira- 
cles of  beneficent  action,  words  and  deeds  of  im- 
mortal power  and  worth  ;  but  where  does  the 
Christ  appear  most  divinely  great  and  strong  ? 
In  what  phase  and  attitude  of  his  life  does  he 
put  forth  the  greatest  effect?     What  passage  in 


216  STRENGTH  IN   WEAKNESS. 

his  history  has  contributed  most  to  bless  and  re- 
deem the  world  ?  Is  it  when  discoursing  on  the 
mountain,  or  healing  the  sick,  or  opening  the  eyes 
of  the  blind?  The  unanimous  voice  of  the  Chris- 
tian world  declares  that  the  Christ  was  greatest 
and  strongest  when  all  power  seemed  to  have 
departed  from  him ;  when,  helpless  on  the  cross, 
he  suffered  the  will  of  his  Father  and  the  power 
of  his  enemies.  It  is  the  crucified  Christ  that 
exhibits  most  clearly  the  divine.  It  is  the  cru- 
cified Christ  that  discloses  the  wondrous  deeps 
of  the  spirit,  that  draws  all  men  after  him,  and 
fills  the  world  with  his  matchless  idea  and  his 
saving  love. 

There  are  crosses  in  every  lot,  and  those  crosses 
are  or  may  be  the  occasion  and  condition  of  a 
power  more  effective  for  the  good  of  others  and 
our  own  than  any  we  have  exerted  in  action. 

I  say  for  the  good  of  others.  We  often  contri- 
bute most  effectually  to  the  good  of  others  when 
we  seem  incapable  of  contributing  anything,  when 
we  require  aid  and  support  ourselves,  and  are  not 
in  a  condition  to  give.  It  is  not  those  who  do  the 
most,  or  not  necessarily  they,  who  accomplish  the 
most.  If  we  look  around  us,  if  we  study  our- 
selves, we  shall  find  that  we  are  as  much  indebted 
to  the  sufferings  of  our  fellow-men  as  we  are  to 
their  action.     Indeed,  if  we  inquire  what  it  is  that 


STRENGTH  IN   WEAKNESS.  217 

lias  done  the  good  which  is  supposed  to  have  been 
done  by  those  who  have  labored  most  devotedly 
and  most  effectively  for  human  weal,  we  shall  find 
that  it  is  not  so  much  the  acts  performed  and  the 
works  completed,  as  it  is  the  spirit  which  was  man- 
ifested in  them.  And  that  spirit  may  be  mani- 
fested in  suffering  as  well  as  in  doing.  The  spirit 
that  is  in  us  outlives  all  our  works ;  it  is  that  alone 
which  gives  them  any  real  value  and  lasting  effect ; 
it  is  that  alone  which  tells  in  the  sum  of  things. 
The  life  of  many  a  renowned  person,  the  record 
of  whose  action  fills  large  volumes,  has  left  no 
permanent  trace  and  effected  no  permanent  good, 
because  the  true  spirit  was  not  there  to  quicken 
and  bless.  The  life  of  Christ  is  contained  in  a 
few  pages,  may  be  read  in  a  couple  of  hours,  but 
what  length  of  time  can  ever  efface  the  stamp  of 
his  spirit  from  the  world  ? 

I  said  we  may  contribute  most  effectually  to  the 
good  of  others  when  we  seem  incapable  of  contri- 
buting anything.  Let  me  take  you  to  the  sick- 
room of  some  poor  invalid,  who  for  the  greater 
part  of  his  life  has  been  confined  within  the  four 
walls  of  his  chamber  and  for  many  years  has  been 
unable  to  employ  his  hands  in  any  useful  work. 
A  shallow  utilitarian  would  say  that  an  individual 
in  that  condition  is  a  very  useless  being,  and  that 
such  a  life  is  no  benefit,  but  a  burden,  to  society. 


218  STRENGTH  IN   WEAKNESS. 

It  may  be  so  in  some  cases,  but  more  often, 
I  believe,  if  such  things  could  be  weighed  and 
measured,  that  passive  invalid  would  be  found 
to  have  contributed  more  abundantly  and  more 
lastingly  to  the  good  of  his  fellow-creatures  than 
many  a  one  who  toils  unceasingly  at  his  daily 
task,  and  who  never  through  illness  has  lost  a 
day's  work.  He  has  taught  without  intending, 
without  knowing  it  perhaps,  to  some  bystander  or 
attendant  a  more  important  lesson ;  by  the  seed 
he  has  unwittingly  dropped  in  some  receptive  mind 
or  heart,  he  has  wrought  a  more  beneficent  work 
than  others  have  done  by  the  action  of  a  whole  life. 
And  so  he  has  been  stronger  in  his  weakness  than 
the  strong  man  in  his  strength.  I  will  suppose 
that  he  has  quickened  but  one  soul  and  sent  it  for- 
ward with  new  impulse  in  the  path  of  life,  and  I 
will  suppose  another  to  have  labored  without  ceas- 
ing, to  have  amassed  a  large  estate,  and  never  per- 
haps to  have  committed  a  crime,  but  to  have  lived 
and  labored  always  in  a  mean  and  selfish  spirit, 
without  reverence  and  without  love ;  and  I  say 
that  the  good  done  to  that  one  soul  in  the  former 
case  outweighs  all  that  has  been  accomplished  in 
the  other  by  a  whole  life  of  what  is  commonly 
called  useful  toil.  The  world  is  very  much  in  the 
dark  as  to  what'  is  useful,  or  often  greatly  mis- 
taken in  its  standard  and  measure  of  utility.     If 


STRENGTH  IN    WEAKNESS,  219 

we  leave  out  of  view  the  moral  in  man,  if  we  leave 
out  the  fact  of  spirit  in  our  estimate  of  things,  why 
then  a  bale  of  cotton  or  a  shipload  of  iron  is  worth 
more   than   the   noblest  act   or  life    which  yields 
no   material   product,   then   the   invention   of   the 
steam-engine  is  incomparably  a  more  useful  gift 
to  the  world  than  the  gospel  of  Christ.     But  trace 
those  material  products  and  agents  to  their  last 
use,  and  you  will  see  that  they  are  useful  only  so 
far   as   they   promote   human   well-being.      What- 
ever promotes  human  well-being  is  the  true  util- 
ity.     The   agent    most    conducive   to   that    result 
is  the  education  and  perfection  of  the  moral  na- 
ture.    One  pure  example,  one  noble  life,  is  worth 
more  than  all  the  material  agencies  at  work,  or 
that  ever  have  been  at  work,  in  the  world.     I  tell 
you,  if  there  be  in  this  community  one  really  good 
man   or   woman,   and    but    one,   that    individual, 
though  it  should  be  the  humblest  citizen  amono- 
us,  is  a  greater  good  to  this  community,  and  is 
doing  more  good  every  day  than  all  its  industry 
and  its  traffic  and  all  the  hands  it  employs.     The 
formation  of  the  moral  character  is  a  work  of  more 
real  importance  than  the  whole  business  so  called 
of  this  community,  of  this  nation,  than  the  wliole 
material  universe   apart  from  its  bearing  on  the 
moral  life.     The  formation  of  the  character  is  the 
real  business  of  this  world ;  and  all  the  other  busi- 


220  STRENGTH  IN   WEAKNESS. 

ness  that  is  done  in  the  world,  the  buying  and  the 
selling  and  the  making,  is  of  no  importance  except 
as  in  its  final  bearing  and  result  it  promotes  that 
work.  The  material  universe  has  no  significance 
and  no  true  being  except  as  the  topic,  means,  and 
arena  of  that  work.  The  material  universe  exists 
only  as  the  ground  and  topic  of  the  moral. 

If  our  weakness,  as  we  have  seen,  may  be  made 
strength  and  good  to  others,  how  much  more  to 
ourselves  !  Who  has  not  experienced  at  times  that 
weakness  which  underlies  our  ordinary  powers, — 
the  superficial  every-day  strength  that  just  suffi- 
ces for  every-day  tasks  !  It  is  as  if  the  coat  of 
mail  in  which  we  had  been  fighting  the  life-battle 
were  stripped  off  and  we  were  left  powerless  and 
defenceless  without  it.  You  are  stricken  with  ad- 
versity, you  are  made  weak  with  affliction,  —  bodily 
disease  or  the  loss  of  your  dearest.  Disqualified 
for  labor,  indisposed  to  exertion,  you  feel  as  if  all 
strength  and  virtue  had  gone  out  of  you.  In  the 
dull  prostration  and  cheerless  night  of  that  expe- 
rience a  strength  is  springing  up  in  you  which  as 
yet  you  know  not  of,  and  which  you  had  never 
found  in  action.  The  upper  layer  of  superficial 
strength  has  been  removed  from  your  life  and  a 
stratum  of  weakness  succeeds ;  but  underneath 
that  weakness  a  more  exceeding  strength  appears, 
—  the  primary  formation  of  the  soul.      Like  the 


STRENGTH  IN   WEAKNESS.  221 

fabled  Titan,  whose  strength  was  renewed  by 
touching  the  ground,  man  needs  to  be  thrown 
back  from  time  to  time  on  the  native  soil  of  his 
own  breast.  The  night  has  come,  and  you  sink 
down  worn  and  weary ;  but  the  night  which  pros- 
trates for  a  while,  invigorates  in  the  end.  You 
needed  this  experience  to  make  you  acquainted 
with  yourself,  to  give  you  new  sight  of  your  means 
and  aims.  In  that  new  discernment  there  lies 
already  a  new  power ;  and  now  that  you  are  weak 
you  are  strong,  —  strong  with  new  insight  and 
strong  with  new  hope.  And  if  the  lesson  of  that 
time  has  not  been  lost  upon  you,  when  you  rise 
from  your  temporary  prostration  you  will  go  forth 
with  new  vigor  to  new  and  better  works. 

Or  again,  you  are  stricken  in  your  conscience, 
you  are  convicted  in  your  soul  of  grievous  wrong ; 
you  have  sinned  against  the  incorruptible  judge 
within.  You  are  weak  in  the  consciousness  of 
having  fallen  from  truth  and  duty.  The  season 
of  contrition  is  also  a  season  of  power.  You  see 
now  how  hollow  and  without  foundation  was  the 
fancied  strength  which  you  had  before  you  fell. 
A  breath  has  overthrown  it.  It  needed  this  fall 
to  discover  you  to  yourself,  to  teach  you  your  im- 
potence, and  to  lay  anew  the  foundation  of  obe- 
dience in  the  soul.  When  you  thought  you  were 
strong  you  were  weak ;  now  that  you  know  your 


222  STRENGTH  IN   WEAKNESS. 

weakness  you  are  strong.  We  must  learn  to  think 
humbly  of  ourselves  before  the  Divine  strength  can 
be  perfected  in  us.  There  is  a  truth  in  the  old 
saying,  that  we  are  nearer  to  God  when  we  have 
sinned,  for  then  God  is  revealed  to  us  anew  in  his 
law.  And  after  all,  it  is  not  by  our  works  that  we 
are  saved.  "  God  needeth  no  man's  goods ; "  *  we 
are  saved  by  faith. 

The  result  of  the  whole  is  the  old  secret  which 
the  heart  long  since  whispered  to  itself,  that  God 
alone  is  strong.  There  is  no  strength  but  his ; 
we  are  strong  only  as  we  come  into  his  order  and 
are  filled  with  his  life  and  moved  by  his  Spirit. 
All  the  truly  great  and  good  have  felt  this,  have 
expressed  it.  "  Not  unto  us,  0  Lord,  not  unto  us, 
but  unto  thy  name  give  glory,"  has  been  their  con- 
fession and  their  triumph  when  they  have  acted 
wisely  and  well.  They  felt  themselves  possessed 
by  a  higher  power.  "  Not  I,  but  the  grace  of  God 
which  was  with  me,"  said  Paul.  "I  can  of  mine 
own  self  do  nothing,"  was  the  word  of  Christ. 

So  let  us  learn  to  think  little  of  our  action  when 
we  have  seemed  to  do  best,  yet  work  as  we  can  in 
our  place  and  calling,  —  work  as  talent  and  oppor- 
tunity are  given  us.  Our  work  is  nothing  in  itself; 
but  if  the  Spirit  of  God  be  in  it  and  in  us,  that 
Spirit  will  bear  fruit  in  its  season.     And  when  we 

*  Non  egct  bonis  tuis.  —  Saint  Bernard. 


STRENGTH  IN    WEAKNESS.  223 

are  weak  and  helpless  and  suffering,  let  us  not 
feel  that  we  are  forsaken ;  let  us  not  feel  that  we 
are  emptied  of  God ;  rather  that  we  are  emptied  of 
our  own  imagined  strength,  and  that  God  is  flow- 
ing in  to  fill  up  the  void  in  the  breast.  Let  us 
look  that  his  strength  be  perfected  in  our  weak- 
ness, knowing  that  the  deeper  the  abasement  the 
greater  the  exaltation,  and  that  when  we  are  weak 
we  are  strong. 


XYI. 

SPIEITS  m   PRISON. 

By  which  also  he  went  and  preached  unto  the  spirits 
in  prison.  1  Peter  iii.  19. 

'T^HE  "  Apostles'  Creed,"  an  ancient  symbol, 
though  not  a  document  actually  emanating 
from  the  hands  of  the  Apostles,  contains  the  note- 
worthy article  at  which  modern  theology  somewhat 
hesitates,  —  that  Christ  after  death  descended  into 
hell,  that  is,  the  place  of  departed  souls.  The 
dead  were  supposed  by  the  ancients  —  Jews  as 
well  as  Gentiles  —  to  have  their  abode  in  a  region 
in  the  hollow  of  the  earth  inaccessible  to  the  light 
of  day.  This  hold  was  called  a  "prison,"  and 
rightly  so ;  for  those  who  were  in  it,  both  good  and 
bad,  were  supposed  to  be  detained  there  against 
their  will.  Tliey  sighed  in  vain  for  the  upper 
world  from  which  they  had  descended,  and  to 
which  it  was  impossible  evermore  to  return.  A 
dismal  idea  those  ancients  had  of  the  future  state. 
It  was  a  melancholy  life  which  they  pictured  to 
themselves,  —  the  life  of  the  departed,  —  compared 


SPIRITS  IN  PRISON.  225 

with  the  life  in  the  flesh.     Even  in  Elysium,  in 
Valhalla,  in  Abraham's  bosom,  the  future  state  to 
them  was  loss,  not  gain ;  not  enlargement,  but  con- 
finement more  close  than  before.     The  departed, 
in   their   conception,   were   less   alive   than   when 
clothed  with  earthly  bodies,  instead  of  more  alive 
as  we  conceive  them.     They  went  down  into  that 
underworld,  and  there  they  were  forced  to  remain. 
If  not  tormented,  they  were  held  in  durance.    They 
would  gladly  have  returned  to  this  world's  light. 
Elysium  was  no  compensation  for  the  loss  of  the 
earthly  life.     They  were  "  spirits  in  prison."     Ho- 
mer represents  Achilles  in  Elysium  as  saying  he 
would  rather  be  a  day-laborer  on  the   earth  than 
king  of  all  the  dead.     It  is  necessary  to  under- 
stand these  ancient  views  of  the  future  state  in 
order  to  appreciate  the  full  blessing  of  tlie  Chris- 
tian revelation  in  this  particular.      So  true  it  is 
that  Christ  "  brought  life  and  immortality  to  light," 
that  he  "  burst  the  bonds  of  death  "  and  "  led  cap- 
tivity captive."     This  deliverance  is  figured  in  that 
beautiful  fancy  of  young  Christendom,  that  Jesus 
after  death,  before  his  ascension  into  heaven,  de- 
scended into  hell,  or,  as  our  text  has  it,  went  and 
preached  to  the  spirits  in  prison ;  that  he  gave  to 
the  dead  also  his  divine  gospel,  —  preached  in  the 
underworld,  as  he  had  done  in  the  upper,  —  salva- 
tion and  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

15 


226  SPIRITS  IN  PRISON. 

Such  was  the  belief  of  the  early  Church,  very 
faintly  intimated  in  the  New  Testament, — the  only 
distinct  allusion  to  it  being  the  passage  I  have 
quoted,  —  but  made  an  article  of  faith  in  the  Apos- 
tles' Creed,  and  dramatically  set  forth  in  the  apoc- 
ryphal Gospel  of  Nicodemus,  which  probably  repre- 
sents the  current  belief  of  the  Christians  of  the 
second  century. 

It  is  not  my  intent,  however,  to  discuss  the 
doctrine  of  Christ's  descent  into  hell.  I  have 
nothing  more  at  present  to  say  on  that  topic, 
but  I  seize  on  that  expression,  "  spirits  in  prison." 
It  is  very  suggestive.  The  spirits  of  the  under- 
world are  not  the  only  ones  included  in  that 
category ;  the  upper  world,  the  living  human 
world  of  our  experience,  is  full  of  them.  They 
are  all  about  us,  and  we  perhaps  are  of  the  num- 
ber. Spirits  in  prison,  —  I  scarcely  know  of  any 
other.  Where  shall  we  look  for  spirits  out  of 
prison,  for  spirits  wholly  free  ?  What  spirit  but 
in  some  way  is  fettered  and  trammelled  and  dis- 
qualified for  being  and  doing  all  that  a  spirit  might 
and  should  be  and  do.  We  call  ours  a  free  coun- 
try. We  have  no  hereditary  sovereign  over  us ; 
we  choose  our  own  rulers  and  make  our  own  laws. 
We  think  that  a  great  privilege ;  a  good  deal  of 
rhetoric  is  annually  expended  in  celebrating  it. 
But  I  am  not  aware  that  spirits  are  more  free  in 


SPIRITS  IN  PRISON.  227 

these  States  than  in  other  countries  equally  en- 
lightened. I  have  sometimes  been  tempted  to  think 
they  are  less  so,  —  that  public  opinion,  fashion, 
caste,  the  fear  of  what  people  will  say,  are  more 
imperious  and  binding  here  than  in  other  lands. 
Be  that  as  it  may,  it  is  certain  that  political  liberty 
does  not  necessarily  lead  to  spiritual  emancipa- 
tion, does  not  take  out  of  prison  the  spirits  of  those 
who  enjoy  it.  It  rather  establishes  and  tightens 
one  of  the  prisons  in  which  spirits  are  confined, 

—  the  prison  of  party.  The  American  politician 
is  constrained  to  become  a  member  of  a  party ; 
he  must  act  with  his  party  to  act  with  political 
effect.  But  the  party  inevitably  becomes  a  prison 
in  time  to  those  who  act  with  it.  It  shuts  them 
up  to  certain  prescribed  methods  ;  it  limits  their 
judgment  of  men  and  things.  When  I  see  a  man 
sacrificing  his  private  convictions,  however  judi- 
ciously, heroically,  to  the  party  he  serves,  assent- 
ing to  measures  whose  wisdom  he  questions,  voting 
for  the  candidate  whose  fitness  he  doubts,  or  re- 
fusing to  vote  for  the  candidate  of  another  party 
whose  qualifications  he  approves,  I  acknowledge, 
it  may  be,  in  such  action  a  political  necessity,  but 
I  certainly  recognize  in  the  actor  a  spirit  in  prison, 

—  a  spirit  trammelled  by  expediency,  cramped  by 
association,  —  a  spirit  that  cannot  do  the  best  that 
it  sees,  that  cannot  square  its  action  with  its  vision. 


228  SPIRITS  IN  PRISON, 

Aside  from  politics  there  are  social  connections 
that  hold  us  all  in  iron  bonds.  No  man  belongs 
entirely  to  himself,  and  no  man  is  quite  original. 
Our  profession,  our  age,  the  community  in  which 
we  live,  exert  an  inevitable  influence  over  us. 
They  form  a  constituent  part  of  our  being;  our 
opinions,  sentiments,  principles,  habits  are  given 
us  by  the  atmosphere  in  which  we  live.  We  in- 
hale them,  we  absorb  them,  they  are  in  our  diet 
and  in  our  blood.  Our  Christianity,  our  Protes- 
tantism in  ninety-nine  cases  out  of  a  hundred,  is 
not  the  result  of  investigation,  but  the  accident  of 
birth.  It  is  a  part  of  our  heritage,  a  part  of  our 
constitution.  No  man  so  insulated  or  so  original, 
who  is  not  to  some  extent  the  product  of  society. 
No  doubt  we  are  helped  by  these  connections. 
On  the  whole,  we  are  more  helped  than  hindered 
by  them.  But  some  impediments  and  bonds  they 
inevitably  lay  upon  us.  They  forestall  our  judg- 
ment in  many  things.  There  is  a  prison  of  preju- 
dice more  or  less  close  around  each  of  us.  The 
light  of  truth  does  not  come  to  us  straight  from 
the  fountain,  in  full  and  unembarrassed  effusion, 
but  deflected,  refracted,  colored,  through  the  me- 
dium of  our  position  and  our  time.  Lord  Bacon 
was  a  zealous  reformer  of  the  methods  of  science, 
but  he  could  not  quite  disengage  himself  from  the 
prepossessions  of  his  age.     In  direct  contradiction 


SPIRITS  IN  PRISON.  229 

of  his  own  fundamental  principle  he  rejected  the 
Copernican  astronomy  as  a  visionary  hypothesis, 
and  held  fast  to  the  old  belief  that  the  sun  re- 
volves and  the  earth  stands  still.  Luther  was  a 
zealous  reformer  in  religion,  he  gave  up  papal 
infallibility,  he  thundered  against  indulgences,  he 
renounced  purgatory,  renounced  the  Mass,  dealt 
very  freely  with  the  Fathers  and  the  New  Testa- 
ment, but  he  clung  to  the  Devil,  —  a  belief  one 
"would  say  to  be  got  rid  of  if  possible ;  but  he  clung 
to  it.  Next  to  Christ,  the  Devil  was  the  foremost 
article  in  his  creed.  Sir  Thomas  More  was  one  of 
tlie  bravest,  most  independent  and  intelligent  men 
in  English  history.  Contemporary  with  Erasmus 
and  Luther,  he  knew  their  views ;  but,  as  Lord 
Macaulay  says  of  him,  he  was  ready  to  die  for  the 
truth  of  the  dogma  of  Transubstantiation,  —  the  ex- 
treme and  most  questionable  point  of  Romish  doc- 
trine. Sir  Matthew  Hale  was  wise  and  conscientious 
and  merciful  and  just,  and  one  of  the  most  intelli- 
gent men  of  his  time  ;  but  he  did  not  scruple  to  hang 
women  for  witchcraft,  declaring  that  the  reality  of 
the  thing  was  unquestionable, — for,  first,  "the  Scrip- 
tures had  affirmed  it ;  and  secondly,  the  wisdom 
of  all  nations  had  provided  laws  against  it."  Sir 
Thomas  Browne,  an  enlightened  philosopher  and 
distinguished  physician,  whose  medical  studies  one 
would  think  might  have  taught  him  better ;  and 


230  SPIRITS  IN  PRISON. 

Cudworth,  author  of  the  "  Intellectual  System,"  — 
adhered  to  the  same  faith. 

Here  are  cases  of  brave  spirits  and  true,  among 
the  most  enlightened  the  world  has  known,  who 
yet  must  be  classed  as  spirits  in  prison,  hopelessly, 
irretrievably  fixed,  incarcerated,  immured,  in  the 
prejudices  of  their  time. 

Such  examples  may  well  give  us  pause.  How 
do  we  know  that  the  great  authorities  of  the  pres- 
ent day,  the  teachers  on  whom  we  chiefly  rely,  to 
whom  we  listen  with  the  greatest  confidence,  — 
how  do  we  know  that  they  and  we  ourselves  are 
not  shut  up  and  fast  locked  in  some  opinion  or 
belief  as  baseless  as  the  doctrine  of  witchcraft  or 
the  dreams  of  alchemy  ?  Prejudice  is  not  all  on 
the  side  of  belief.  There  is  a  prison  of  unbelief 
not  less  tenacious.  Let  us  not  for  a  moment  ima- 
gine that  confinement  and  limitation  are  the  pro- 
duct of  creeds,  are  proper  to  conservatism,  and 
unexampled  beyond  the  conservative  pale.  I  have 
known  radicals  so  called  whose  prison,  though 
new,  was  as  narrow,  the  walls  of  it  as  thick,  and 
the  bars  as  close  as  those  of  any  time-gray  and 
weather-rusted  stronghold  of  conservatism.  Here 
is  a  radical  in  social  reform.  He  bears  on  his 
heart  the  wrongs  and  woes  of  society ;  he  burns 
and  strives  to  have  them  abolished,  —  all  vice  and 
evil  at  once  and  forever  he  would  do  away,  —  not 


SPIRITS  IN  PRISON.  231 

by  moral  influence  and  gradual  growth  of  the 
good,  but  by  mechanical  force.  He  insists  on  im- 
practicable measures,  and  thinks  to  establish  vir- 
tue by  dint  of  stringent  legislation.  In  short,  he 
is  an  absolutist  in  morals  ;  and  absolutism  is  a  very 
close  prison  to  the  spirit  possessed  by  it.  Here  is 
a  radical  in  speculation,  a  despiser  of  traditions, 
a  come-outer.  The  past  is  nothing  to  him,  author- 
ity is  nothing,  he  is  bound  by  no  forms.  Here 
surely  is  a  spirit  out  of  prison.  If  absence  of 
any  positive  belief  constitutes  an  emancipated 
spirit,  he  may  claim  that  distinction.  But  when  I 
listen  to  his  discourse  I  perceive  that  negations 
may  create  as  close  a  confinement  around  a  man 
as  affirmations.  This  man  is  so  shut  up  in  his 
theory  of  the  uniformity  of  natural  events,  of  the 
impossibility  of  anything  out  of  the  common,  of  the 
impossibility  of  any  existence  of  which  Science 
furnishes  no  proof,  —  he  has  built  around  him,  with 
this  theory,  such  a  thick  wall  of  negation  as  to  ren- 
der himself  inaccessible  to  any  spiritual  illumina- 
tion, to  any  influx  of  knowledge  through  other 
avenues  than  those  which  it  pleases  him  to  keep 
open.  One  half  of  the  life  and  experience  of  man 
is  closed  to  him  by  the  wilful  assumption  of  its 
nullity  in  which  he  immures  himself.  There  is  no 
window  in  his  prison  which  opens  on  that  side. 
He  passes  for  a  very  enlightened  and  free  spirit ; 


232  SPIRITS  IN  PRISON. 

he  seems  to  me  narrow  and  bound.  I  see  the 
truth  there  is  in  his  negations.  I  desire  to  see  it, 
I  respect  it.  He  does  not  try  to  see  the  truth  there 
is  in  my  beliefs ;  he  does  not  care  to  see  it,  he  is 
blind  on  that  side.  Such  is  my  experience  of  the 
limitations  of  even  the  gifted  and  the  good.  In 
my  intercourse  with  men  I  have  found  that  the 
two  rarest  qualities  in  human  nature  are  liberality 
and  justice.  Genius  is  rare  and  holiness  is  rare; 
but  show  me  a  thoroughly  liberal  and  fair  mind, 
and  1  will  show  you  a  spirit  intellectually  as  nearly 
out  of  prison  as  any  spirit  in  human  flesh  may 
hope  to  be. 

I  say  intellectually ;  but  the  prisons  in  which 
men's  prejudices  immure  them  have  often  a  moral 
ground,  —  dislike  of  those  who  differ  from  us,  con- 
tempt for  those  whom  we  regard  as  inferior,  impa- 
tience of  opposition,  hatred,  and  ill  will.  Every 
passion  which  men  indulge  is  a  prison  to  the  soul 
possessed  by  it,  and  the  deadliest  prisons  in  which 
spirits  languish  are  those  which  we  build  for  our- 
selves by  our  faults  and  crimes.  Whoso  commit- 
teth  sin  is  the  slave  of  sin.  A  sinful  habit  grown 
into  the  life,  —  what  a  bondage  is  that,  and  how 
fast  it  grows !  Our  natures  are  so  constituted  as 
strongly  to  incline  in  a  given  direction,  to  do  per- 
force what  we  have  often  done  before.  Our  actions 
grow  to  habits  as   easily    and    imperceptibly   as 


SPIRITS  IN  PRISON.  233 

youth  shoots  up  into  manhood,  or  manhood  de- 
clines into  age.  Then  comes  the  experience  of 
that  law  of  which  Paul  speaks,  which  compels  a 
man  to  do  what  he  hates.  The  very  hatred  shows 
the  strength  of  the  prison  in  which  the  spirit 
pines.  The  spirit  does  not  will  to  sin,  the  spirit 
yearns  to  the  moral  law,  it  thirsts  after  righteous- 
ness ;  and  still  the  old  complaint,  "  When  I  would 
do  good,  evil  is  present  with  me.  For  I  delight  in 
the  law  of  God  after  the  inward  man :  but  I 
see  another  law  in  my  members  .  .  .  bringing  me 
into  captivity  to  the  law  of  sin.  ...  0  wretched 
man  that  I  am  !  who  shall  deliver  me  from  the 
body  of  this  death  ? "  Happy  they,  if  any  there 
be,  who  know  nothing  of  this  conflict,  to  whom 
all  this  is  a  foreign  tale,  like  a  story  of  ro- 
mance or  high-wrought  tragedy,  who  experience 
no  contradiction  in  themselves,  no  obstruction  in 
their  will,  and  none  in  their  members,  that  hin- 
ders obedience  to  the  highest  law  their  minds 
have  sight  of ;  with  whom  the  law  in  the  members 
is  one  with  the  law  in  the  mind ;  with  whom  to 
see  is  to  will,  and  to  will  is  to  perform.  Wherever 
this  perfect  obedience  is  found,  there  is  Christ 
preaching  to  the  spirits  in  prison  and  aiding  their 
deliverance.  We  are  all  spirits  in  prison,  more 
or  less  bound  by  accidents  of  time  and  place,  by 
our  connections  and  prepossessions,  by  our  preju- 


234  SPIRITS  IN  PRISON. 

dices  and  passions,  our  infirmities  and  sins.  The 
flesh  itself  becomes  a  prison  when  it  ceases  to 
answer  the  demands  of  the  spirit.  And  there 
comes  a  time  to  most  when  the  spirit  calls  on  the 
flesh  in  vain,  when  sickness  and  infirmity  lay  hold 
of  us,  and  we  "  groan  within  ourselves,  waiting  for 
the  adoption,  to  wit,  redemption  of  our  body." 
Spirits  in  prison,  let  us  learn  to  be  very  patient 
with  our  brother  and  sister  captives  in  their  sev- 
eral cells,  patient  of  one  another's  bonds  and  limi- 
tations, not  too  confident  of  our  own  emancipation, 
but  hoping  for  the  time  when  the  Father-Spirit, 
that  preaches  to  us  continually  if  we  will  but  hear 
his  voice,  shall  deliver  us  all  into  "  the  glorious 
liberty  of  the  children  of  God." 


XVIT. 

THE   SPIEIT'S   KEST. 

Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are  heavy  laderi, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest.  Matthew  xi.  28. 

'T^HE  sublime  self-assertion  expressed  in  these 
words  is  peculiar  to  Jesus  among  the  teach- 
ers of  men.  What  other  teachers  affirm  of  their 
doctrine  he  affirms  of  himself.  Other  teachers 
have  propounded  their  views  as  the  truth  of  God ; 
he  declares  himself  the  Truth  and  the  Life.  Other 
teachers  have  vaunted  the  peace  which  their  sys- 
tems afford;  he  offers  himself  as  rest  to  the  soul. 

A  true  religion  fulfils  the  double  office  of  stimulus 
and  rest,  — incentive  to  action  and  relief  from  the 
pressure  of  cares  and  pains.  The  soul  needs  both 
in  varying  measure,  according  to  its  state  and  mood. 
When  life  flourishes,  —  when  peace  and  prosper- 
ity, health  of  body  and  health  of  mind,  domes- 
tic comforts  and  social  satisfactions,  abound  and 
shed  their  light  about  us,  — when  pursuits  that 
interest  us  absorb  our  thought,  and  the  current 
of  our  life  flows  smoothly  in  its  providential  chan- 


236  THE   SPIRITS  REST. 

nel,  —  we  need  instruction,  warning,  it  may  be 
reproof.  When,  on  the  other  hand,  weakness,  in- 
capacity, pains  of  body  or  pains  of  mind,  losses,  and 
afflictions  interrupt  the  calm  flow ;  when  perplex- 
ity and  tribulation  break  up  our  rest,  and  breed 
storms  in  our  sky,  and  wrap  us  in  deep  shadow, 
we  crave  the  supports  of  the  immortal  Comforter, 
we  cling  to  whatever  of  eternal  promise  is  within 
the  reaches  of  the  soul,  and  feel  after  all  divine 
consolations.  It  needs  the  night  to  bring  out  the 
stars.  We  believe  in  the  stars,  we  know  they  are 
there  in  the  heavenly  spaces,  but  we  do  not  see 
them  "  when  brightly  shines  the  prosperous  day," 
we  do  not  heed  them  until  the  sun  is  withdrawn 
and  the  night  with  its  damps  encamps  about  us. 
"  Then  darkness  shows  us  worlds  of  light  we  never 
saw  by  day  ;  "  and  science  teaches  that  those  far- 
off  worlds  so  minute  in  our  experience  are  also 
suns  to  those  who  are  near  enough  to  see  their 
splendors. 

Seasons  of  great  tribulation  are  exceptional, 
but  all  men  are  burdened.  The  load  of  life 
which  we  do  not  feel  in  ordinary  circumstances 
any  more  than  a  healthy  body  feels  the  weight  of 
the  earth's  atmosphere,  presses  heavily  at  times, 
and  seems  greater  than  we  can  bear  when  occa- 
sional disturbance  and  sorrow  of  heart  make  us 
conscious  of  its  weary  weight.     There  are  times  in 


THE  SPIRITS  REST,  237 

all  men's  experience  when  consciousness  responds 
to  the  cry  of  the  ^' heavy  laden,"  and  confesses  the 
need  of  rest  to  the  soul.  All  men's  burdens  are 
not  the  same,  but  all  are  burdened, —  some  in  their 
thoughts,  some  in  their  affairs,  some  in  their  con- 
sciences, some  in  their  affections.  Let  us  see  how 
the  Spirit  meets  these  several  occasions,  and  what 
is  the  rest  it  offers  to  souls  thus  tried. 

There  are  burdens  of  thought,  —  doubts,  per- 
plexities, speculative  and  religious,  grave  ques- 
tions concerning  the  dark  problems  of  provi- 
dence and  destiny,  of  the  soul's  relations  with  the 
unseen,  our  calling  in  the  present,  our  portion 
hereafter.  This  is  a  burden  which  weighs  un- 
equally on  different  natures,  according  as  their 
mental  constitution  inclines  them  to  speculate  and 
solve  these  problems  for  themselves,  or  to  rest  in 
hearsay  and  accept  without  demur  the  traditions 
of  their  time,  or  without  hesitation  to  put  them 
aside  as  old-world  stories,  outgrown  and  effete. 
The  majority  of  men  are  little  troubled  with  these 
questions  ;  they  receive  the  current  belief  of  their 
communion,  but  hold  it  so  externally,  so  blindly, 
that  their  minds  never  come  into  contact  with  it, 
and  have  no  spiritual  property  in  it.  Or  perhaps 
under  different  influences  they  reject  the  current 
belief,  but  as  undiscerningly  as  those  who  pro- 
fess it,  and  without  accounting  to  themselves  for 


238  THE  SPIRITS  REST, 

their  unbelief,  or  attempting  to  replace  the  old 
confession  with  a  new  interpretation  of  the  facts 
of  life. 

Others  there  are  who  are  haunted  by  these  ques- 
tions, persecuted  by  them,  like  Paul  and  Justin 
Martyr  and  Augustine  and  Fox  and  Luther,  driven 
into  the  wilderness,  vexed  and  tortured  and  torn 
with  doubts.  To  all  such  life  is  a  problem  which, 
as  often  as  they  ponder  it,  perplexes  and  confounds 
them  with  its  liidden  import.  They  cannot  choose 
but  strive  with  it,  till  they  find  relief  in  some 
adequate  solution,  or  else  in  a  final  and  clear  con- 
viction that  no  such  solution  is  possible  to  intellec- 
tual investigation.  The  soul  asks.  What  am  I  and 
whence,  and  what  is  this  nature  which  surrounds 
me  ?  Tradition  answers  with  words  and  names 
which  offer  to  clear  the  mystery,  but  which  compli- 
cate it  with  new  perplexities.  Tradition  affirms  a 
divine  order,  by  which  all  things  are  working  to- 
gether for  good;  but  we  see  all  around  disorders  and 
disasters,  woes  and  crimes,  which  seem  incompat- 
ible with  that  all-wise  and  beneficent  rule.  We 
are  taught  to  believe  in  moral  obligation.  That 
implies  entire  freedom  to  will  and  to  do.  But  we 
see  men  everywhere  the  victims  of  circumstance, 
impelled  by  forces  which  sway  their  wills  and  con- 
trol their  action.  We  are  told  of  an  immortal 
existence  and  a  world  to  come  illustrious  with  all 


,  THE  SPIRITS  REST.  239 

perfections.  But  we  see  the  lamp  of  life  go  out ; 
the  undiscovered  country  withliolds  its  secret,  and 
suffers  no  emigrant  to  recross  its  frontiers. 

To  minds  perplexed  with  these  contradictions 
the  Spirit  addresses  its  invitation,  "  Come  unto 
me,  and  I  will  give  you  rest."  The  proffered  rest 
is  not  a  scientific  solution  of  these  problems,  not 
a  logical  demonstration  of  every  question  the  in- 
tellect may  put,  but  the  lifting  up  of  the  soul  into 
a  region  of  intuitions,  where  the  understanding 
may  follow,  indeed,  but  cannot  lead,  and  where 
demonstration  is  superfluous.  It  is  the  answer 
of  faith,  which  reconciles  where  philosophy  had 
seemed  to  contradict,  and  restores  what  philoso- 
phy had  seemed  to  destroy. 

There  are  different  stages  of  mental  experience 
in  relation  to  spiritual  truths.  The  first  is  the 
childish  one  of  passive  reception  and  implicit  faith, 
the  stage  of  authority ;  in  that  we  receive  without 
question  and  without  hesitation  what  teachers  and 
books  and  popular  tradition  impart.  Belief,  in 
this  stage,  is  acquiescence,  not  conviction  ;  it  rather 
accepts  than  apprehends.  The  next  stage  is  that 
of  criticism.  Here  the  understanding  asserts  it- 
self with  exaggerated  and  often  hostile  activity. 
It  doubts  and  cavils,  and  contradicts  and  denies. 
We  are  no  longer  satisfied  with  authority,  we  must 
try  and  test  and  judge  for  ourselves  ;  we  question 


240  THE  SPIRITS  REST, 

and  criticise  and  cross-question,  and  either  end  in 
total  unbelief,  or  else  pass  on  to  the  next  and 
highest  stage,  which  is  that  of  faith,  of  spiritual 
insight,  —  that  plane  of  the  spirit  where  mere 
authority  no  longer  avails  except  the  authority  of 
truth  itself,  that  is,  of  immediate  divine  communi- 
cation, but  where  also  doubt  and  contradiction  are 
done  away ;  where  intuitions  supply  the  place  of 
analysis,  and  groping  inquiry  is  translated  into 
vision.  Let  us,  therefore,  understand  that  what 
the  spirit  proposes  as  rest  to  mental  perplexity  and 
doubt  is  not  a  doctrinal  system,  but  impulse  and 
aid  to  the  soul,  enabling  it  to  overcome  or  forget 
its  critical  scruples,  and  to  rise  above  the  region 
of  argumentation  into  primary  relations  with  the 
living  Truth.  It  is  not  dogmatic  authority,  but 
spiritual  attraction  and  elevation. 

We  come  next  to  the  burdens  of  earthly  affairs, 
—  the  cares  of  subsistence,  the  care  of  to-morrow, 
and  all  the  worry  of  the  flesh  and  the  world. 

No  earthly  good  comes  to  us  unconditionally. 
On  everything  we  use  a  price  is  set.  Our  very  ex- 
istence is  not  a  gratuitous  gift,  but  requires  in  the 
vast  majority  of  cases  a  constant  effort  to  main- 
tain it.  But  who  of  us  is  satisfied  with  bare  sub- 
sistence ?  Who  limits  his  wants  to  a  minimum  of 
means  ?  Who  accepts  the  anchorite's  or  cynic's  lot  ? 
We  all  include  in  that  term  "  subsistence  "  com- 


THE  SPIRITS  REST.  241 

forts   exceeding    absolute    necessity,    superfluities 
more  or  less,  according  to  the  social  standard  of 
our  time.      Moreover,  we   live   not   to    ourselves 
alone,    we    are    connected    with    others    who    de- 
pend upon  us  for  their  support.     Hence,  of  neces- 
sity, all-engrossing,  never-ceasing  labors  and  cares 
which   have  temporal  subsistence   for   their   only 
end.     It  is  hard,  we  sometimes  think,  this  depend- 
ence  on  the  flesh,  hard  for  immortal   spirits   to 
wear  the  yoke  of  material  necessity.     The  end  of 
life,  we  say,  is  not  meat  and  drink,  but  intellectual 
and  moral  growth,  the  unfolding  of  the  image  of 
God.      It  might  therefore   seem  best   that    mere 
bodily  subsistence  should  be  furnished  to  all  with- 
out care  or  pains.     But  the  Wisdom  that  appointed 
our  earthly  lot  has  otherwise  determined  our  neces- 
sities.    There   would   be   no  labor   if   subsistence 
were  secure;  and  if  no  labor,  then  no  discipline, 
no  training,  no  growth.     The  labor  expended  on 
earthly   things  is  a  way  of  approach  to  heavenly 
things.     Every  man's    calling  is  a  school  out  of 
which  the  door  opens  into  everlasting  life.     The 
graduate  of  earth's  industrial   establishments  ac- 
quires the  freedom  of  the  city  of  God.     Were  we 
not  compelled  by  stern  necessity  to  toil  and  strive 
for  material  good,  we  should  not,  it  is  likely,  strive 
at  all,  but  dream  away  a  useless  existence,  and 
end  life  no  wiser  and  no  better  than  we  began  it. 

16 


242  THE   SPIRITS  REST. 

Therefore  life  itself  is  conditioned.  Its  price  is 
labor,  —  ceaseless  effort  not  only  to  live  well,  but  to 
live  at  all.  But  life  so  conditioned  gives  birth  to 
a  brood  of  cares  which  not  only  incite  but  fret  the 
soul.  Subsistence  to  most  is  a  difficult  problem ; 
their  uttermost  exertions  scarce  suffice  for  them- 
selves and  those  committed  to  their  keeping.  The 
little  they  possess  is  insecure ;  accident  may  deprive 
them  of  that  little,  and  plunge  them  and  theirs  into 
helpless  dependence  and  distress.  To  all  who  are 
thus  burdened,  the  Spirit  calls :  "  Come  unto  me, 
and  I  will  give  you  rest,"  —  not  rest  from  labor, 
but  rest  from  harassing  anxieties  and  cares ;  rest 
from  the  agonizing  doubts  and  fears  which  afflict 
the  soul  devoid  of  faith ;  rest  in  the  thought  that 
God  omnipotent  reigneth,  that  eternal  Wisdom 
and  Mercy  rule  ;  rest  in  that  beautiful  thought  of 
the  Gospel,  —  the  Providence  that  feeds  the  fowls 
of  the  air  and  clothes  the  grass  of  the  field,  shall 
it  not  feed  and  clothe  you  ?  —  rest  in  the  belief 
that  He  who  called  us  into  conscious  being,  and 
cast  our  lot  on  the  hard  necessities  of  earth  and 
time,  can  have  no  other  purpose  in  our  being, 
and  no  other  end  in  all  hardness  and  trials,  but 
our  own  exceeding  good. 

Turn  we  now  to  another  ingredient  in  this  mor- 
tal load. 

There  are  burdens  of  conscience,  —  the  sense  of 


THE   SPIRITS  REST.  243 

unworthiness,  the  self-iipbraidings  of  the  heart  for 
remembered  transgressions,  painful  recollections 
of  violated  law,  neglected  duty,  self-indulgence, 
the  unsubdued  appetite,  the  ungoverned  passion, 
worldly  concupiscence,  the  heart  estranged  from 
truth  and  God.  These  are  reflections  which  some- 
times rise  in  judgment  against  us  and  fill  the  soul 
with  deep  unrest.  We  feel  that  we  are  not  what 
we  should  be  and  might  be.  There  shines  the 
pure,  unchangeable  law ;  here  grovels  our  recreant 
life.  How  can  we  collate  our  poor  doings,  our 
wandering  and  sinful  ways,  with  those  ideals  of 
heavenly  sanctity  and  heavenly  love  which  are 
set  before  us  in  the  books,  wliich  are  given  in  our 
own  consciousness,  and  not  feel  ourselves  abased 
and  abashed,  convicted  and  judged  before  the  tri- 
bunal of  God  in  the  soul  ?  How  shall  we  escape 
from  the  burden  of  this  unworthiness  ?  Who  shall 
deliver  us  from  the  body  of  this  death  ?  For  these 
sorrows  and  distresses  of  the  burdened  conscience 
the  old  religions  had  no  resource  but  the  priestly 
sacrifice,  which,  however  in  the  faith  of  the  wor- 
shipper it  might  seem  to  atone  for  the  past,  af- 
forded no  pledge  for  the  future.  If  it  expiated 
foregone  actual  crimes,  it  furnished  no  redemption 
from  the  bonds  of  sin,  it  ministered  no  healing  to 
the  festering  hurts  of  the  soul,  it  provided  no 
escape   from    the   fatal    entanglements    of    guilt. 


244  THE  SPIRITS  REST, 

Christianity  meets  the  wounded  spirit  with  such 
revelations  of  the  infinite  Love  as  show  the  very- 
penalties  of  sin  resulting  from  natural  and  moral 
laws  to  be  means  and  methods  of  spiritual  growth, 
and  sin  itself, — repudiated  and  disowned  by  the  con- 
trite heart, — the  opportunity  of  grace  more  abound- 
ing. In  its  great  and  distinguishing  doctrine  of 
salvation  by  faith  it  ministers  reconciliation  to  the 
conscience  struggling  with  the  crushing  sense  of  be- 
setting sin,  and  opens  heaven  to  all  wlio  truly  desire 
and  trustingly  embrace  the  proffered  gift. 

We  have  yet  to  speak  of  the  burdens  of  affec- 
tion. All  men  live  more  or  less  in  their  affec- 
tions. No  part  of  our  nature  is  more  fruitful 
of  blessing,  and  none  inflicts  such  poignant  sor- 
row. If  we  weigh  together  all  that  we  enjoy 
with  all  that  we  suffer  from  this  source,  it  is  hard 
to  say  whether  one  or  the  other,  the  good  or  the 
evil,  preponderates  in  our  experience.  The  deepest 
wounds  which  the  heart  receives  in  the  battle  of 
life,  the  most  incurable,  are  the  wounds  of  affec- 
tion. Love  in  its  very  nature  has  an  element  of 
sadness.  When  happiest  in  its  object  and  least 
disturbed  by  the  accidents  of  life,  its  consciousness 
is  sombre,  there  is  something  of  a  sigh  in  its  very 
fondness.  And  every  affection  in  proportion  to  its 
fulness  and  intensity  exposes  the  subject  to  im- 
minent anguish.     Every  affection  contains  a  hope 


THE   SPIRITS  REST.  245 

which  is  liable  to  bitter  disappointment.  It  may 
fail  of  an  adequate  return,  or  the  object  of  it  may 
prove  unworthy,  or  death  may  interpose  with  its 
message  of  doom  and  rend  the  loved  one  from  our 
embrace.  Each  of  these  fatalities  is  a  matter  of 
daily  occurrence  ;  they  are  all  familiar  experiences 
of  life.  The  amount  of  suffering  involved  in  these 
experiences  will  differ  with  different  individuals 
in  the  measure  of  their  sensibility  and  self-con- 
trol ;  but  none  are  so  insensible,  none  so  entirely 
masters  of  themselves,  as  not  to  be  painfully  af- 
fected by  them.  Most  mortals  suffer  more  from 
this  source  than  from  all  other  causes  of  sorrow 
combined.  To  all  so  wrung,  to  all  wounds  of  the 
heart,  the  Spirit  advertises  the  balm  of  its  rest, — 
rest  in  the  thought  that  no  unselfish'  affection  is 
wasted,  however  its  object  may  disappoint,  for  love 
is  of  God  and  leads  to  God;  that  though  hearts 
perish,  "hearts'  loves  remain,"  and  that  what 
affection  sows  in  tears  it  is  sure  to  reap  in  beauty 
and  in  joy. 

To  all  who  are  burdened,  to  all  who  are  stricken, 
to  all  who  mourn,  the  Spirit  speaks  to-day  in  the 
words  of  its  immortal  legacy,  as  in  old  Judaea  in 
the  far-away  past  it  spoke  through  the  lips  of  the 
flesh,  -:-  "  Come  unto  me,  all  ye  that  labor  and  are 
heavy  laden,  and  I  will  give  you  rest." 

But  mark  what  follows,  observe  the  condition 


246  THE  SPIPdTS  REST. 

annexed  to  this  rest,  —  "  Take  my  yoke."  Will  it 
mock  us,  then,  instead  of  relieving,  will  it  give  us  a 
stone  when  we  looked  for  bread,  impose  new  bur- 
dens in  addition  to  the  old  ?  On  the  contrary,  this 
yoke  is  one  which  makes  all  others  bearable  ;  which, 
freely  assumed  and  faithfully  borne,  imparts  a 
magic  and  miraculous  peace.  The  yoke  of  duty,  — 
only  they  who  take  that  upon  them  take  rest  to 
their  souls.  Only  tliey  who  are  harnessed  with 
dutiful  purpose  and  work  in  the  traces  of  moral 
obligation  can  bear  unmoved  the  burden  of  life. 
Duty  is  the  one  unfailing  panacea  of  ultimately 
sure  and  blessed  effect.  There  is  the  solution  of 
every  doubt ;  there  is  your  balm  for  every  wound, 
your  refuge  in  all  distress.  Are  you  a  seeker  after 
truth,  endeavoring  to  fathom  the  reason  of  things 
and  gravelled  in  the  effort  ?  Answer  the  call 
which  is  knocking  at  your  soul  to  do  the  duty  of 
the  day,  and  you  shall  find  the  answer  you  seek. 
Do  the  will  and  you  shall  know  of  the  doctrine. 
Are  you  troubled  in  your  affairs,  perplexed  with  the 
care  of  to-morrow  ?  Do  the  duty  of  to-day,  and  the 
morrow  will  take  care  of  itself.  Are  you  wounded 
in  your  affections,  disappointed  in  your  hopes? 
Has  it  fallen  to  your  lot  to  part  with  your  dearest  ? 
Sacrifice  to  duty,  and  solace  shall  descend  like  dew 
from  the  very  first  offering  which  you  lay  upon 
that  altar. 


THE  SPIRITS  REST.  247 

What  next?  "For  I  am  meek  and  lowly." 
Humility  is  rest.  How  much  of  our  vexations, 
our  disappointments  and  sorrows,  springs  from  our 
conceit,  and  the  wild  demands  and  disproportionate 
expectations  which  that  conceit  engenders  !  What 
is  it  that  our  wishes,  if  we  let  them  speak  out,  are 
ready  to  crave  ?  The  uttermost  of  worldly  good 
that  ever  fell  to  the  lot  of  man,  —  uninterrupted 
prosperity,  undisturbed  peace,  unbroken  health,  a 
perpetuity  of  earthly  enjoyments.  This  is  the 
secret  purport  of  our  desires.  What  presumption 
lurks  in  these  unconscious  cravings  !  What  right 
has  any  of  us  to  uninterrupted  happiness,  or  in- 
deed to  any  happiness  at  all  ?  What  title  can  we 
show  to  the  good  we  desire  ?  Let  us  learn  to 
think  little  of  ourselves,  to  moderate  our  claims, 
walk  humbly  and  bring  our  expectations  down  to 
our  deserts,  as  we  hope  to  find  rest  to  our  souls. 

Whether  or  not  we  will  suffer  in  this  world  it  is 
not  for  us  to  say ;  it  has  once  for  all  been  so  or- 
dained. But  how  we  will  suffer,  whether  slavishly 
or  freely,  —  whether  we  will  take  up  the  cross  which 
life  brings,  in  the  spirit  of  patience  and  meek  sub- 
mission, or  have  it  forced  and  fastened  upon  us  hy 
inexorable  destiny,  —  it  is  for  us  to  determine ;  and 
on  this  determination  it  depends  how  heavy  our 
burden  shall  be,  and  how  far  it  shall  answer  the 
ends  of  discipline.     The  world  has  burdens  for  all 


248  THE  SPIRITS  REST. 

who  live  in  it.  Necessity,  sickness,  frustrated  pur- 
poses, disappointed  hopes,  perplexities,  mortifica- 
tions, losses,  and  bereavements,  —  who  can  escape 
them  ?  These  are  the  stuff  of  which  life  is  made. 
To  be  human  is  to  suffer.  The  Spirit  does  not 
promise  immunity  from  pain  ;  it  does  not  say, 
"  Come  unto  me  and  you  shall  suffer  no  longer, 
but  have  good  times  forevermore,  and  revel  in 
unalloyed  and  unbroken  satisfactions,"  as  if  it  were 
some  garden  of  soft  delights  to  which  it  calls  us. 
What  it  says  is, "  Learn  of  me,  in  meekness  and  pa- 
tience and  steadfast  devotion,  to  do  and  to  bear ; 
and  though  laboring  and  heavy-laden,  across  all 
the  burdens  and  pains  of  mortality  a  rest  divine 
shall  stream  into  your  souls." 


XVIII. 

THE  EELIGION   OF   THE   EESUEEECTION. 

That  I  may  know  Jiiin,  and  the  power  of  his  resur- 
rection. Philippians  iii.  10. 

'T^HERE  is  a  religion  of  tlie  resurrection  which 
the  Christian  world  has  never  known.  The 
creed  of  Christendom  thus  far  has  centred  in  the 
crucifixion.  Ciiristians  in  all  these  ages  have  been 
taught  to  die  with  Christ,  but  not  to  rise  with  him. 
The  religion  of  the  cross, —  Christendom  has  had 
its  fill  of  that.  Through  long  centuries  the  doctrine 
of  the  Church  has  sought  to  disparage  this  earthly 
life  in  view  of  a  promised  heavenly  life  to  come.  It 
has  taught  men  to  look  beyond  the  bounds  of  time 
and  beyond  the  dissolutions  of  death  for  the  better 
world  of  Christian  hope.  I  cannot  so  interpret  the 
sense  of  the  New  Testament.  Heaven  and  earth, 
as  contrasted  in  those  writings,  are  not  different 
places  of  abode  divided  by  death,  but  different  lev- 
els of  human  life.  When  the  apostle  says,  '^  Set 
your  affections  on  things  above,"  he  means.  Strive 
to  realize  the  Christian  ideal  in  the  here  and  now. 


250     THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  RESURRECTION. 

to  make  something  better  than  has  yet  been  made 
of  this  earthly  life.  The  old  religion  thought  to 
lay  hold  on  heaven  by  disdaining  and  repudiating 
earth;  but  the  true  way  to  possess  heaven  is  to 
find  it  in  earthly  conditions.  If  you  would  realize 
your  ideal,  you  must  learn  to  idealize  the  real. 

The  religion  of  the  resurrection,  —  let  me  try  to 
unfold  to  you  some  of  the  characteristics  of  such  a 
religion  as  contrasted  with  the  fading  ideas  and 
worn  out  methods  of  the  past. 

1.  The  religion  of  the  resurrection  is  spiritual 
emancipation.  The  religion  of  the  past  has  been 
one  of  constraint,  — "  the  spirit  of  bondage  again 
to  fear,"  instead  of  the  spirit  of  adoption  with  its 
infinite  trust.  It  has  dogmatized  and  threatened 
and  coerced.  Its  God  has  been  a  jealous  God, 
jealous  of  his  glory,  all  his  action  having  that  for 
its  end.  The  French  communist,  being  questioned, 
declared  that  he  believed  in  no  God ;  if  he  did  he 
should  feel  it  his  duty  to  oppose  and  wage  war 
against  *'  the  almighty  tyrant."  That  was  the  idea 
he  had  got  from  the  teaching  of  the  Church.  The 
old  religion  presented  itself  as  an  enemy,  not  as 
a  friend,  —  a  frowning  monitor  confronting  you  at 
every  turn,  a  foe  to  all  the  humanities.  The  world 
grew  dark  in  its  shadow  wherever  it  prevailed. 
The  Sunday  with  its  stern  requirements,  its  Puri- 
tan austerities,  —  what  a  weariness  it  was  to  the 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  RESURRECTION.    251 

children  of  a  former  generation !  If  I  should  paint 
religion  as  presented  to  me  in  my  childhood,  it 
would  be  the  figure  of  an  executioner  with  uplifted 
lash.  Instead  of  tempting  the  religious  sentiment 
into  free  unfolding  of  itself  by  impressing  the 
young  heart  with  the  beauty  of  truth  and  the  ten- 
der sympathy  of  God,  there  went  abroad  a  perverse 
notion  that  religion  must  be  forced  on  the  unrecep- 
tive  and  the  disinclined,  as  Charlemagne  forced 
Christianity  on  the  Saxons  by  the  pains  of  an 
unrelenting  war  ;  as  Cortez  would  convert  the 
Mexicans  at  the  point  of  the  sword.  You  must 
be  religious ;  whether  by  nature  so  inclined  or 
not,  you  must  be  religious,  you  must  love  the  God 
whom  we  preach  on  pain  of  eternal  damnation,  — 
is  what  the  Church  has  said  and  says.  But  who 
can  love  a  God  who  is  painted  so  unlovely  ?  Only 
that  which  attracts  and  delights  can  any  man  truly 
love.  "Constraint,"  said  a  Christian  Father,  "is 
the  Devil's  method." 

2.  Let  us  say,  then,  that  the  religion  of  the  res- 
urrection is  spiritual  attraction ;  the  free  inclina- 
tion of  the  heart  to  the  Highest ;  worship  of  divine 
truth  and  love,  enforced  by  no  law,  required  by 
no  precept,  but  prompted,  elicited,  magnetically 
evoked  by  their  own  sufficient  and  irresistible  at- 
traction ;  worship  of  God  in  Nature  and  God  in 
man  for  his  own  transcendent  beauty's  sake.     And 


252     THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  RESURRECTION. 

he  who  has  never  felt  the  beauty  of  Godhead  and 
basked  in  it  with  admiring,  longing  love,  has  virtu- 
ally no  God.  He  may  be  religious  in  the  sense  of 
faithful  compliance  with  the  forms  and  require- 
ments of  his  church ;  that  is  well  so  far  as  it  goes. 
Still  it  is  the  religion  of  the  Law,  not  the  religion 
of  the  Resurrection ;  it  is  the  religion  of  a  soul 
which  the  shadow  of  God  has  passed  over  and 
sobered  with  its  gloom,  not  the  electric  response  of 
the  heart  which  the  vision  of  God's  beauty  kindles. 
I  emphasize  this  distinction  between  attraction 
and  compulsion  in  religion.  When  religion  is  pre- 
sented* as  obligatory,  the  moral  order  is  mistaken 
for  the  spiritual.  Man's  relation  to  the  moral 
order  is  one  of  obligation.  The  voice  of  duty 
speaks  in  the  imperative :  Thou  shalt,  and  Thou 
shalt  not.  To  the  spiritual  or  celestial  order,  on 
the  contrary,  the  true  relation  is  one  of  mutual 
attraction.  The  voice  of  religion  is  one  of  invi- 
tation, like  the  voice  which  the  seer  heard  in  Pat- 
mos,  saying,  "  Come  up  higher."  Religion  invites ; 
morality  commands.  There  are  things  which  de- 
pend on  the  will,  and  may  therefore  be  required 
of  the  will.  There  are  others  which  depend  on 
native  gift,  on  inspiration,  on  the  grace  of  God, 
and  cannot  be  put  as  unconditionally  binding.  Re- 
ligion I  reckon  one  of  these.  In  the  matter  of 
physical  decorum  we  may  bid  a  child  be  clean,  we 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  RESURRECTION.    253 

cannot  bid  him  be  beautiful  or  graceful.  So  in 
things  appertaining  to  mental  behavior  we  require 
a  man  to  be  just  and  honest,  we  cannot  require 
him  to  be  generous  or  brave.  Nor  can  we,  against 
the  grain  of  his  nature,  demand  of  a  man  that  he 
shall  be  religious.  We  may  say  with  truth  that 
religion  is  the  height  of  human  nature, — that  with- 
out it  the  uttermost  of  power,  beauty,  goodness,  and 
blessedness  can  never  be  realized,  —  but  we  can- 
not say  that  a  man  is  bound  to  be  religious  in  the 
same  sense  in  which  he  is  bound  to  be  upright  and 
true.  It  is  a  mischievous  exaggeration  to  say  that 
religion  is  the  one  thing  needful ;  there  are  things 
more  needful  than  that.  Religion  must  be  appre- 
hended as  a  grace,  a  charm,  a  beauty,  a  happy 
privilege,  instead  of  a  burden  and  an  obligation, 
if  Christendom  is  ever  to  rise  with  Christ  and  to 
know  the  power  of  his  resurrection. 

The  Church  of  Rome  in  the  midst  of  her  cor- 
ruptions developed  one  conception  in  which  unwit- 
tingly the  true  nature  of  religion  was  symbolized, 
had  the  Church  but  understood  her  own  svmbol- 
ism,  and  practically  embraced  the  religion  she 
symbolized.  Among  the  sanctities  which  shine 
conspicuous  in  Catholic  mythology  the  foremost 
figure  is  the  Virgin  Mary  ;  and  the  power  of  that 
sanctity  consists  in  its  grace,  —  it  is  pure  attraction. 
Other   sanctities  may  overawe,  but   the  heavenly 


254     THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  RESURRECTION. 

Virgin,  combining  the  beauty  of  the  maiden  with 
the  mother's  tenderness,  can  only  attract.  There 
is  nothing  in  it  which  can  terrify ;  there  is  nothing 
wanting  in  it  that  can  win,  encourage,  and  console. 
Christian  art  has  produced  no  face  of  Christ  so 
expressive  of  the  characteristic  grace  of  Christian- 
ity, so  emblematic  of  the  religion  of  the  resurrec- 
tion, as  the  face  of  the  Virgin  in  the  pictures  of 
Andrea  del  Sarto,  of  Correggio,  of  Raphael.  It 
has  given  us  the  Christ  of  the  Last  Supper,  the 
Teacher  and  Master ;  it  has  given  us  the  "  Ecce 
Homo,"  the  immortal  Sufferer  symbolizing  the 
religion  of  the  cross ;  but  when  we  seek  an  equal 
symbol  of  the  religion  of  the  resurrection  we 
must  look  to  the  Sistine  Madonna,  —  the  Virgin 
with  the  babe  in  her  arms ;  an  infinite  beatitude 
in  the  mother's  eye,  an  infinite  pramise  in  that 
of  the  child. 

3.  The  religion  of  the  resurrection  is  self-sur- 
render, which  is  something  very  different  from  the 
self-abasement  and  self-crucifixion  enjoined  or  com- 
mended by  ancient  standards  of  devotion.  There 
we  seem  to  see  always  a  taint  of  self-seeking,  a 
bargain  with  Heaven  in  which  penance  and  volun- 
tary hardship  and  self-inflicted  crosses  are  to  be 
accepted  as  the  price  of  future,  eternal  rewards. 
The  idea  of  reward,  of  a  heaven  of  rewards,  with 
which  Christian  literature  is  saturated,  has  com- 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  RESURRECTION.     255 

pletelj  eclipsed  in  the  common  mind  the  true  and 
radical  idea  of  religion  as  a  free  embrace  of  the 
Eternal.     The  best  thing  in  religion  is  the  oppor- 
tunity it  offers  of  deliverance  from  self;  emanci- 
pation from  selfish,  howbeit  unworldly,  cares  and 
fears,  from  all  concern  about  the  hereafter  of  the 
soul ;  such  a  sense  of  the  eternal,  such  enjoyment 
of  it  in  the  here  and  now,  as  shall  drive  these  cares 
clean  out  of  the  mind.     Instead  of  seconding  this 
offer  and  this  relief,  the  religion  of  the  past  has 
sought  to  increase  that  concern,  to  make  men  espe- 
cially anxious  about  themselves,  about  the  salva- 
tion of  their  own  souls,  as  if  that  were  the  one  sole 
end  of  being.     What  is  the  first  and  chief  question 
to  which  religion  has  invited  attention?     "What 
must  I  do  to  be  saved  ? "     That  is  to  be  made  the 
chief  study,  and  the  answer  to  that  the  guide  of 
life.     If  I  rightly  understand  the  heart  of  the  gos- 
pel, the  question,  "  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ?  '* 
is  not  the  question  which  most  demands  to  be  con- 
sidered.    The  dwelling  on  that  question,  if  per- 
sisted in,  cannot  fail  to  have  an  injurious  effect. 
There  are  cases,  there  is  a  time,  when  this  question 
is  a  very  legitimate  one,  and  not  to  be  put  by. 
But  on  the  whole,  whatever  draws  attention  to  self, 
whatever  sets  men  to  thinking  about  themselves 
and  worrying  about  themselves,  has  a  tendency  to 
foster  narrowness  and  to  make  religion  a  kind  of 


256     THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  RESURRECTION. 

self-seeking,  —  self-seeking,  it  is  true,  in  an  un- 
worldly sense,  but  still  self-seeking.  Religion  offers 
deliverance  from  self,  and  that  is  religion's  hap- 
piest office.  For  what  is  this  self  which  we  want 
to  save,  and  cherish  so  fondly,  as  if  it  were  our 
chief  possession  ?  If  we  were  wise,  we  should  see 
that  safe  though  it  be,  it  can  never  satisfy ;  that 
the  best  we  can  do  with  it  is  to  forget  it.  There 
was  no  self  in  that  mythical  Eden  before  the  Fall. 
There  will  be  no  self  in  the  Paradise  regained  of 
the  perfected  spirit  that  ever  beholds  the  face  of 
the  Father,  and  never  separates  itself  from  God. 
That  which  we  call  self  exists  only  by  derivation 
and  limitation ;  it  has  no  independent  being,  it  can 
never  attain  to  independent  being,  but  on  the  con- 
trary, if  true  to  its  calling,  will  lose  more  and 
more  the  conceit  of  independence,  and  count  it  all 
joy  to  hide  itself  in  the  infinite  Self,  —  the  "  rest " 
that  remains  "  to  the  people  of  God." 

That  old  self-questioning  religion,  the  religion 
of  fear,  the  religion  which  spent  itself  in  anxious 
inquiries,  "  What  must  I  do  to  be  saved  ? "  has 
lost  its  hold  on  cultivated  minds.  The  religion  of 
the  resurrection,  with  new  perceptions  of  human 
destiny  and  a  new  interpretation  of  the  meaning  of 
life,  must  restore  the  power  of  the  Spirit  now  in 
abeyance  and  re-establish  its  sway  in  human  life. 
For  Spirit  is  the  rightful  Lord  of  this  earth,  and 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  RESURRECTION.     257 

spiritual  power  is  that  which  reaches  deepest  into 
the  heart  of  the  world.  The  first  superficial  view 
of  human  life  presents  material  industry  as  the 
leader  and  ruler  of  society.  It  shows  trade  as  the 
God  of  this  world,  ubiquitous,  untiringly  active, 
compelling  all  other  agencies  to  toil  in  his  service, 
setting  countless  hands  at  work  in  mines  and  mills, 
breathing  hot  vapor  from  countless  iron  throats, 
piercing  the  ear  of  night  with  the  agonizing  scream 
of  the  steam-whistle,  out-speeding  the  wind,  putting 
the  lightning  in  harness  to  go  on  his  errands,  en- 
gaging the  human  race  to  furnish  his  merchandise, 
and  sending  it  into  every  remote  corner  of  the  hab- 
itable earth.  All  this  thousand-fold  activity  with 
which  the  world  palpitates,  flashes,  and  thunders 
from  shore  to  shore,  which  every  year  grows  noi- 
sier and  more  confusing,  is  born  of  traffic  and  prop- 
agates traffic,  forever  multiplying  its  progeny  as  if 
human  nature  had  no  other  end. 

This  is  what  the  first  view  presents ;  but  look 
again,  look  deeper,  and  you  will  find  that  these 
activities  so  conspicuous,  so  engrossing,  owe  their 
first  impulse  to  something  higher  than  themselves. 
Trade  is  the  offspring  of  civilization,  and  civiliza- 
tion, if  we  trace  its  origin,  will  be  found  to  have 
derived  its  quickening  breath  from  religion.  Every- 
where religion  has  been  the  pioneer,  and  indus- 
try  and   commerce   have    followed   in   her   steps. 

17 


258     THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  RESURRECTION. 

She  has  sent  her  missionaries  to  the  ends  of  the 
earth,  and  the  ends  of  the  earth  have  exchanged 
with  each  other  their  products  and  their  arts. 
Material  forces  are  everywhere  at  work,  they  fill 
the  whole  field  of  immediate  vision,  but  the  powers 
that  most  profoundly  sway  the  world  and  recreate 
society  are  spiritual  powers.  Moses  and  Zoroaster 
and  Christ  and  Mohammed  have  originated  the 
great  social  movements  which  age  after  age  reflect 
their  image  and  celebrate  their  name.  These  are 
the  mountain  peaks  whence  gush  the  rivers  that 
make  glad  the  earth  and  bear  the  seeds  of  civili- 
zation from  land  to  land. 

The  religion  of  the  resurrection  will  recover  the 
spirit  that  gave  birth  to  the  Christian  ages,  will 
manifest  that  spirit  by  casting  off  the  abuses  and 
corruptions  and  effete  traditions  of  the  Church, 
will  reproduce  the  life-giving  power  of  the  early 
gospel,  and  become  once  more  a  prevailing  force 
in  the  world.  New  born  of  this  spirit,  the  Church 
will  no  longer  know  Christ  after  the  flesh,  but 
know  him  in  the  power  of  his  resurrection,  and 
knowing  him  thus,  will  cease  to  dogmatize  about 
his  person  or  to  dogmatize  at  all ;  will  rid  itself 
of  all  compulsory  dogmas  and  enforced  beliefs,  of 
sectarian  barriers  and  ecclesiastical  separations, 
of  all  forms  from  which  the  spirit  and  the  life 
have  departed  ;  will  make  the  Christian  confession 


THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  RESURRECTION.    259 

identical  with  love  to  God  and  man  and  the  ser- 
vice of  God  in  man,  of  the  Father  in  the  Son ; 
will  make  mutual  aid  and  edification  the  limit  and 
bond  of  Christian  fellowship. 

4.  I  add,  as  the  last  and  crowning  grace  of  the 
religion  of  the  resurrection,  spiritual  sanity.  Of 
true  religion  I  know  no  trait  more  characteristic 
than  perfect  health.  There  is  a  kind  of  piety  — 
the  history  of  religion  abounds  in  such  —  which 
suggests  disease ;  religion  with  the  downcast  look, 
moping,  fearful,  sad.  I  spoke  of  tlie  Virgin  of 
the  Romish  Church  as  the  symbol  of  a  free  and 
gracious  faith.  The  opposite  type  of  morbid  piety 
I  find  in  Saint  Clara  of  Assisi,  of  whom  it  was  said 
that  she  never  but  once  lifted  her  eyelids  so  much 
as  to  show  the  color  of  her  eyes,  and  that  was  to 
receive  the  Pope's  blessing.  Shall  we  praise  those 
downcast  eyes?  Rather  with  the  Psalmist,  "I  will 
lift  up  mine  eyes  unto  the  hills,  from  whence  Com- 
eth my  help,"  —  to  those  heights  of  Humanity 
where  live  the  sacred  memories  of  all  the  risen, 
and  testify  of  the  vast  possibilities  of  life. 

True  piety  feels  everywhere  the  immediateness 
of  the  divine  presence,  and  has  that  joy  in  Nature 
and  life  which  only  the  deep  consciousness  of  God 
can  give.  And  though  it  sees  that  the  world  is 
full  of  sorrow  and  crime,  it  sees  also  compensation 
and  redemption  for  all.     It  carries  its  own  heaven 


260     THE  RELIGION  OF  THE  RESURRECTION. 

into  all  the  hells  that  lie  in  its  way,  and,  like  Jesus 
in  the  legend,  comes  forth  from  the  underworld 
unscathed,  leading  captivity  captive.  "  Tlie  faith- 
ful in  the  resurrection,"  says  the  Mohammedan 
seer,  will  wonderingly  ask,  "  Did  not  our  way 
hither  lead  close  by  the  brink  of  hell  ?  How  is  it 
that  we  saw  neither  smoke  nor  flame?"  And  the 
answer  will  be,  "  You  came  by  that  way  indeed ; 
but  what  to  others  is  hell  and  the  abyss,  to  you 
was  paradise." 

The  religion  of  the  resurrection  is  perfect  health, 
and  therefore  joy  evermore,  —  not  the  joy  of  fit- 
ful excitement,  the  effervescence  of  a  lawless  spirit 
which  sparkles  and  hisses  for  a  moment  like  the 
foam  in  the  wine-glass,  and  like  that  evaporates 
and  is  gone  forever,  but  resembling  rather  the 
constant  juices  of  the  earth  which  produce  the 
wine  in  its  season  and  duly  replenish  the  cup  of 
life ;  an  indestructible  joy  in  being,  joy  in  the  as- 
surance of  the  everlasting  order,  joy  in  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  everlasting  Friend,  joy  in  the 
dear  consuetudes  of  life,  joy  in  the  present  with 
all  its  benedictions,  joy  in  the  future  with  all  its 
resurrections. 


XIX. 

LOVE  IS   OF  GOD. 

Love  is  of  God.  .  .  .  God  is  Love. 

1  John  iv.  7,  16. 

THE  doctrine  of  God's  omnipresence  in  crea- 
tion—  the  great  truth  that  God  is  not  out- 
side of  the  world,  but  in  the  world,  enfolding  it, 
pervading  it  —  is  the  dearest  conquest  of  modern 
thought  in  the  province  of  theology.  The  mani- 
festations of  divine  agency  in  Nature  may  all  be 
summed  under  two  heads,  —  Intelligence  and  Love. 
It  is  the  latter  of  which  I  am  now  to  speak. 

Writers  on  natural  theology  have  labored  to 
demonstrate  the  love  of  God  by  reckoning  up  the 
various  provisions  made  for  human  well-being  in 
the  animal  structure,  and  the  apt  arrangements  of 
the  world  on  which  the  animal  is  cast.  I  confess  I 
am  not  much  impressed  with  the  cogency  of  these 
proofs.  Say  that  life  on  the  whole  is  a  blessing, 
and  you  have  said  about  all  that  can  be  fairly 
urged,  all  that  it  seems  to  me  discreet  to  say  on 
that  head.      For  when   you   insist   on   the   many 


262  LOVE   IS   OF   GOD. 

sources  of  pleasure  in  human  life,  animal  and 
social,  I  am  driven  to  think  of  the  many  sources 
of  pain,  of  the  aches  and  ails,  the  griefs  and  woes, 
the  devastations  and  horrors,  of  which  human 
existence  is  so  largely  composed,  and  the  bitter 
experience  of  which  has  raised  in  thoughtful  minds 
the  question  whether  evil  or  good  preponderates  in 
the  lot  of  man, 

But  what  does  impress  me  and  assure  me,  as  an 
ever  new  proof  and  illustration  of  the  love  of  God, 
is  the  love  which  God  has  implanted  in  his  crea- 
tures,—  the  love  by  which  they  subsist,  which  one 
generation  transmits  to  another,  which  peoples  the 
earth  and  binds  the  units  of  humanity  in  social 
wholes.  Do  you  ask  what  is  beautiful  in  Nature  ? 
It  is  the  love  of  the  brute  mother  for  her  offspring. 
Surely  this  love  is  of  God,  —  the  truest  illustration, 
to  my  mind  the  most  convincing  demonstration,  of 
that  divine  love  which  theology  affirms.  Is  there 
any  figure  of  rhetoric  in  the  New  Testament  so 
touching  as  that  of  the  hen  gathering  her  chickens 
under  her  wings  ?  Is  there  any  fact  in  zoology  so 
resplendent  as  that  of  the  fiercest  of  beasts,  the 
tigress,  offering  her  body  as  a  target  to  intercept 
the  missile  which  would  pierce  her  cub  ?  Call  it 
blind,  unreasoning  instinct,  if  you  will ;  all  the 
more  do  I  see  in  it  and  admire  and  adore  in  it 
the  present  God. 


LOVE  IS   OF  GOD.  263 

If  any  one  thinks  to  invalidate  the  force  of  this 
idea  by  contending  that  the  brute's  ferocity  is  just 
as  instinctive  and  therefore  just  as  divine  as  the 
brute-mother's  love  of  her  offspring,  I  answer  that 
though  love  is  of  God,  it  is  not  the  whole  of  God ; 
or  rather,  perhaps,  I  should  say  that  these  so  ob- 
vious and  beautiful  manifestations  of  that  love  are 
not  its  only  manifestations.  A  profounder  theo- 
logy than  we  find  in  our  text-books  may,  instead  of 
blinking  and  slurring  them  over,  as  the  custom  has 
been,  learn  to  interpret  the  instinctive  fiercenesses 
and  fightings  of  the  animal  world  in  evident  in- 
telligible accordance  with  the  infinite  Love ;  may 
find  the  middle  term  which  shall  resolve  this  dual- 
ism of  nature,  its  beatitudes  and  its  horrors,  its  loves 
and  its  carnage,  into  that  deeper  unity  which  piety 
divines,  and  which  it  is  a  moral  necessity  of  our 
nature  to  believe. 

Meanwhile,  if  Nature  and  life  are  not  all  love 
let  us  hold  to  the  truth  that  what  love  there  is  is 
of  God,  —  in  Nature  and  life  the  divinest  thing. 
By  love  understand  not  any  single  affection,  but 
that  principle  in  human  nature  which  draws  us  out 
of  ourselves  and  makes  us  forget  self  in  the  service 
of  our  kind.  In  the  human  sphere,  —  this  is  the 
point  to  which  I  now  call  your  attention,  —  in  the 
human  sphere  it  is  love  that  makes  society  possi- 
ble, and   without  love  society  could  not  be.     Not 


264  LOVE  IS   OF  GOD. 

by  self-interest,  not  by  mutual  necessity,  not  by  a 
contract  originating  in  that  necessity,  as  Rousseau 
feigned,  but  mainly  by  the  binding  power  of  love 
does  society  subsist. 

It  might  seem  that  enlightened  self-interest 
should  draw  men  together  and  band  them  in  one , 
but  no  such  band  would  satisfy  the  social  needs  of 
mankind.  Something  more  than  self-interest  is 
required  to  shape  and  propagate  civil  society. 
Imagine  a  world  in  which  self-interest  should  be 
the  only  motive-power,  and  suppose  it  never  so 
enlightened,  a  world  of  pure  intelligences  if  you 
please,  and  you  will  find,  if  you  dwell  on  that  idea, 
that  something  would  be  wanting  to  constitute  a 
commonwealth.  Such  a  world  would  be  an  aggre- 
gation of  private  wealths,  but  no  commonwealth. 
Self-interest,  however  enlightened,  possesses  no  at- 
tractive force,  it  has  no  principle  in  it  of  perma- 
nent cohesion. 

It  is  not  the  coming  of  many  together  that  makes 
society,  but  the  social  instinct  in  the  heart  of  man, 
that  causes  the  coming  together.  Men  talk  of  the 
social  contract  as  if  society  originated  in  that  way, 
but  society  existed  before  any  contract.  The  first 
contract  we  read  of  was  one  of  separation,  not  of 
union.  Abraham  said  to  Lot,  "  Let  there  be  no 
strife,  I  pray  thee,  between  thee  and  me  ...  if 
thou  wilt  take  the  left  hand,  then  I  will  go  to  the 


LOVE  IS   OF  GOD. 


265 


right."  Society  is  not  a  product  of  the  human 
will.  It  is  not  a  thing  which  we  originate  by  com- 
pacts and  covenants.  On  the  contrary,  it  origi- 
nates those  compacts,  and  has  its  own  origin  in 
aboriginal  man.  God  made  society.  It  is  the 
last  and  divinest  of  his  creations.  And  in  it  he 
lodged  a  spark  of  that  love  in  which  he  and  his 
heavens  have  their  being.  For  love  is  of  God,  and 
God  is  love. 

The    fire   then   kindled    has    never    gone    out. 
Through  all  the  revolutions  of  time,  its  births  and 
its  deaths,  the  rise  and  fall  of  empires  and  reli- 
gions, through  old  and  new  ages,  it  has  burned 
and  burns,  unquenched  and  unquenchable.      The 
child  that    is    born  this   day  inherits  it,  is  nour- 
ished by  it,  subsists  by  it,  and   would  inevitably 
perish  without  it.     It  glows  in  the  breast  of  every 
mother  who  folds  her  little  one  in  the  covert  of 
her  arms.   It  sparkles  in  young  eyes  that  seek  each 
other  with  that    elective  affection   of  youth   and 
maiden    which   song   and    story    celebrate,  —  the 
fairest  flower  of  time.     It  is  a  motion  in  the  blood 
of  kindred  hearts,  a  yearning  in  the  thought  of 
consenting  minds.     It   is   courage    and   consecra- 
tion in  the   martyr's   soul.     It  is  aspiration   and 
sounding   praise    in    the    temples    of    all    faiths. 
Every  offering  of  pure  self-sacrifice  is  kindled  by 
it ;  every  blow  that  is  struck  for  freedom  and  man 


266  LOVE  IS   OF   GOD. 

is  nerved  by  it ;  and  when  ages  degenerate  and 
faiths  corrupt,  it  is  this  that  purifies  and  redeems 
the  world. 

Of  this  fire  there  is  no  waste.  The  most  pre- 
cious thing  beneath  the  sun,  it  is  the  only  thing 
that  needs  no  husbanding.  In  lavishness  consists 
its  true  husbandry.  The  more  it  is  expended,  the 
more  there  is  left.  The  heat  of  the  sun,  which  for 
so  many  ages  has  supplied  the  life  of  the  material 
world,  and  which  has  suffered  no  appreciable 
diminution  within  the  limits  of  recorded  time,  is 
nevertheless  subject  to  diminution ;  and  science 
from  that  diminution  predicts  a  time  when  vege- 
table and  animal  life  must  cease  from  the  earth. 
And  if  the  fire  of  the  moral  world,  if  the  love 
which  God  first  kindled  in  the  bosom  of  society 
were  found  to  be  a  diminishing  quantity,  however 
slow  the  rate  of  decrease,  a  time  must  come  when 
society  would  dissolve  and  humanity  perish  through 
loss  of  this  radical  heat.  Is  love  in  the  world  a 
diminishing  quantity  ?  History  answers.  No !  If 
it  languishes  in  one  place,  it  abounds  in  another ; 
if  it  smoulders  here,  it  burns  with  irrepressible 
fervor  there.  There  have  been  periods  in  the 
world's  history  when  love  seemed  to  be  dying  out 
from  the  heart  of  man,  when  egoism  and  depraved 
ambition  acquired  such  ascendency  in  human  af- 
fairs as  to  threaten  the  dissolution  of  the  social 


LOVE  IS   OF  GOD.  267 

state  and  a  general  lapse  into  barbarism.  There 
was  a  time  when  the  world  seemed  decrepit  and 
chill  with  age,  and  about  to  drop  into  the  palsies 
of  death.  The  weight  of  empire  still  cumbered 
the  earth,  but  the  soul  of  the  civilization  which 
reared  it  was  extinct.  Patriotism  had  come  to  be 
a  phantom  of  the  brain,  religion  the  dream  of  a 
bygone  age,  and  honor  a  breath  that  no  longer 
refreshed.  The  family  hearth  had  lost  its  sacred- 
ness ;  marriage  was  a  temporary  convenience,  no 
longer  a  permanent  bond.  The  public  altar  still 
palpitated  with  the  offerings  of  custom,  but  no 
longer  glowed  with  the  sacrifice  of  faith.  A  ram- 
pant selfishness  had  established  itself  in  rite  and 
office,  in  government  and  home,  and  had  scared 
the  traditional  sanctities  and  old  affections  from 
all  their  haunts.  Such  was  Rome  in  her  decline, 
and  Rome  embraced  the  larger  portion  of  the  civ- 
ilized world. 

But  all  this  while,  through  all  the  years  of 
this  decay,  in  a  corner  apart  the  sacred  fire  was 
still  maintained.  Fanned  by  the  Holy  Spirit,  it 
burned  a  still  and  reverent  flame.  Often  stamped 
upon  by  a  jealous  state,  but  never  stamped  out, 
it  burned  in  crypts  and  cells,  and  private  stead- 
fast souls,  till  the  time  came  when  the  veil 
could  be  removed  and  the  fire  blaze  freely  in 
the  face  of  day,  and  defying  the  winds   of  per- 


268  LOVE  IS   OF  GOD. 

secution,  flame  all  the  fiercer  for  every  adverse 
blast.  Whereby  at  last  the  old  world  and  the 
works  that  were  therein  were  burned  up,  and  a 
new  heaven  and  a  new  earth,  attempered  to  the 
flame  and  quickened  by  it,  replaced  the  old.  The 
life  and  fire  of  humanity  were  then  all  concen- 
trated in  the  Christian  Church.  The  love  which 
had  almost  disappeared  from  Gentile  civilization 
was  stored  and  cherished  in  Christian  breasts. 
"  How  these  Christians  love  one  another ! "  said 
the  wondering  Gentiles,  when  high  and  low,  free- 
man and  slave,  were  seen  to  embrace  each  other 
in  the  public  street.  From  the  Christian  Church 
as  a  centre,  from  the  sacred  heart  of  Christ,  the 
centre  of  that  church,  new  tides  of  love  were 
diffused  through  the  world. 

The  continued  existence  of  society  is  proof  suffi- 
cient that  love  on  this  earth  is  not  a  diminishing 
quantity.  Is  it  an  increasing  one,  or  only  constant  ? 
This  is  the  question  of  questions ;  it  concerns  the 
destiny  of  society.  On  the  latter  supposition  so- 
ciety will  endure,  but  will  never  be  better  than  it 
now  is.  The  heat  of  the  material  world  is  thus 
far  a  constant  quantity.  Every  expenditure  of  it  is 
compensated  by  its  just  equivalent  in  some  other 
of  the  forces  of  material  nature.  The  lump  of  coal 
which  burns  on  your  hearth  to-day  gives  out  so 
much  heat,  and  no  more  than  it  took  from  the 


LOVE  IS  OF  GOD.  269 

Sim  in  some  remote  age  when  it  grew  as  vegetable 
substance  on  the  surface  of  the  earth.  And  the 
heat  it  gives  out  is  not  lost.  It  turns  into  motion, 
it  is  represented  by  one  or  another  form  of  elemen- 
tal action,  it  passes  on  from  state  to  state  of  ma- 
terial existence,  until  in  due  course  it  fulfils  its 
circuit  and  turns  into  so  much  heat  again.  In 
the  form  of  heat  or  motion  there  is  always  so 
much  force  at  work  in  the  universe,  —  no  more 
and  no  less.  Heat  in  the  material  world  is  a  con- 
stant quantity ;  and  Nature  endures,  but  does  not 
improve,  from  age  to  age. 

But  the  heat  of  the  moral  world,  we  are  fain  to 
believe,  is  an  increasing  quantity.  The  fact  of  this 
increase  is  indemonstrable.  Its  strongest  proof  is  a 
whisper  at  the  heart  that  it  must  be  so,  if  humanity 
has  not  been  fashioned  in  vain.  Belief  in  the  grad- 
ual but  ceaseless  growth  of  good  until  good  shall 
vanquish  and  subdue  the  evil  that  is  in  the  world,  — 
this,  if  not  a  sure  conclusion  of  the  understanding, 
is  a  necessary  article  of  faith.  And  if  love  is  an 
increasing  quantity,  slow  though  the  increase  be, 
the  condition  of  humanity  in  ages  to  come  will 
exhibit  the  effects  of  that  increase  in  a  new  and 
better  system  of  social  life.  Friends  of  humanity, 
dreamers  of  philanthropic  dreams,  may  expect  the 
realization  of  their  visions  from  that  increase,  and 
that  alone.     Social  science  cannot  give  it,  though 


270  LOVE  IS   OF  GOD. 

social  science  may  do  a  good  work  in  pointing  out 
the  measures  and  methods  by  which  love  is  to 
operate,  and  in  directing  its  applications.  No  social 
reform  can  be  relied  on  as  stable,  but  that  which 
springs  from  a  radical  and  substantial  growth  of 
human  nature  in  moral  life,  —  that  is,  from  an  in- 
crease of  love.  A  very  slight  increase  of  this  or- 
ganic force  would  accomplish  wonders  of  social 
reform,  as  a  slight  difference  in  the  trend  of  the 
ecliptic  would  make  a  difference  of  climate  repre- 
sented on  the  one  side  by  the  glacier,  on  the  other 
by  the  palm.  Without  social  science,  a  little  more 
love  in  the  heart  of  society  would  give  us  paradise. 
The  abolition  of  how  many  wrongs,  the  reduction 
of  how  much  misery,  the  extinction  of  how  much 
sin,  the  growth  of  how  many  graces  and  charities 
and  tropical  affections,  would  attest  and  reward  the 
ameliorated  climate  of  the  soul !  A  little  more 
love,  and  the  New  Jerusalem  would  drop  from  the 
heavens  like  dew,  and  a  socialism  without  pedan- 
try or  calculation  would  readjust  the  polities  of 
earth  to  the  new  ideal  of  a  blessed  life. 

Meanwhile  for  us  individually,  the  first  and  near- 
est concern  is  not  the  increase  of  love  in  the  world, 
but  its  growth  in  ourselves.  Are  we  wise  enough 
to  desire  that  growth  ?  Have  we  sufficient  belief 
in  love  really  to  covet  it  ?  How  many  things  we 
covet,  misled  by  their  tinsel  lustre,  that  are  infi- 


LOVE  IS   OF  QOD.  271 

nitely  less  essential  to  well  being.     Gifts  of  for- 
tune, gifts  of  person,  gifts  of  mind,  riches,  beauty, 
learning,  wit,  — how  they  charm  us!     How  blessed 
we  can  fancy  ourselves  with   these  endowments! 
These   are   the   things   we   would   select   if   some 
good  genius,  like  the  fairies  of  nursery  lore,  should 
offer   a   choice   of   gifts   and   goods.      One   would 
choose   wealth,    one    genius,    another    empire;    a 
fourth,   more   modest,  the   return   of  love.     Who 
would   choose  love  without  thought  of  return,— 
love  not  for  one,  but  for  all  mankind  ?     We  read 
of   a  Hebrew  king  who   chose  wisdom   for  him- 
self out  of  all  tliat  God  in  a  vision  presented  to 
his  choice,  but  I  know  no  story  of    one  who  chose 
love.     Yet  sure  T  am  that  no  fairy  gift  would  so 
richly  contribute  to   one's  own,   not  to   speak   of 
others'  well  being,  as  a  heart  full  of  love.     The 
Hebrew  king  chose  wisdom,  and  became  an  idola- 
ter, became  a  libertine.    His  wisdom  could  not  save 
him  from  this  egregious  folly.     And  the  land  which 
he   ruled,   demoralized  by  his  vices,  fell  asunder 
after  his  death,  never  to  be  united  again.     Had 
love  instead  of  wisdom  been  the  monarch's  dower, 
the  chronicles  of  Israel  might  have  told  a  different 
tale.     It  might  have  been  a  story  of  a  prosperous, 
united,  and  progressive  nation,  instead  of  secession, 
captivity,  and  shame. 

The  best  that   society  has  received  or  can  re- 


272  LOVE  IS   OF  GOD. 

ceive  from  the  All-Giver  is  a  fresh  dispensation 
of  this  celestial  heat.  More  than  genius,  more 
than  intellectual  achievement,  it  promotes  human 
progress  by  reinforcing  the  motive  power  on  which 
all  progress  depends.  Genius  is  a  thing  to  be 
admired,  not  imparted.  Like  a  splendid  constel- 
lation in  the  nightly  heaven,  we  must  look  up 
to  it  in  order  to  be  aware  of  its  presence.  But 
love  is  a  sunbeam,  a  piece  of  the  universal  Love 
which  has  struggled  down  to  us  from  the  ever- 
lasting Fountain  tlirough  all  the  mists  and  chills 
of  earth.  It  comes  unsought  into  our  dwellings. 
We  need  not  go  forth  in  quest  of  it ;  it  finds 
its  way  through  narrow  chinks  and  windows  be- 
grimed with  smoke  and  dust  into  the  lowliest  hut, 
and  flings  a  heavenly  glory  on  rude  walls  and  the 
squalid  scenes  they  enclose.  And  like  the  sun  it 
is  as  indispensable  as  it  is  glorious.  We  can  do 
without  genius  or  wit,  but  what  would  the  world 
be  without  love  ?  We  live  in  the  words  and  acts 
of  our  fellow-men.  Examine  the  record  in  your 
memory,  and  see  how  the  life  which  you  lead  is 
something  reflected  to  you  from  all  with  whom  you 
come  in  contact,  and  how  much  your  comfort  is 
affected  by  your  intercourse  with  others,  and  how 
it  seemed  like  basking  in  the  sun  when  at  any  time 
you  conversed  with  one  who  showed  you  kind- 
ness in  word  or  deed,  the  simplest  word  or  deed. 


LOVE  IS   OF  GOD.  273 

I  may  seem  to  indulge  in  unpracticable  rhap- 
sody.    Of  what  use  is  it  to  enlarge  thus  upon  any 
sentiment  ?     Can  we  by  commanding  will  it  into 
being?     Alas,  no  !  love  is  of  God.     It  is  a  talent,  a 
gift ;  it  cannot  be  forced  into  being  where  it  is  not, 
nor  where  it  is  scant  can  it  be  greatly  increased 
by  an  effort  of  the  will.     Only  by  use  and  constant 
use  of  what  there  is  of  it  in  any  heart,  can  it  wax 
in  fervor  and  power.     In  the  order  of  Providence 
it  is  very  unequally  distributed.     In  some  it  is  a 
strong   and   overcoming   fire,   in   others   a   feeble 
spark  that  refuses  to  burst  into  flame.     Whenever 
in  any  soul  an  exceptional  measure  is  lodged  of 
that  miraculous  force  there  begins  a  new  era  in 
human  affairs.     From  the  heart  so  endowed  a  vir- 
tue goes  forth  which  purges  away  the  old  corrup- 
tion  and   inaugurates  a  new   heaven  and  a  new 
earth.     And  thus,  though  unequally  distributed  as 
cause  and  originating  power,  the  issues  of  love  are 
equally  diffused,  and  its  mission  is  as  broad  as  life. 
From  time  to  time  God  sends  into  the  world  a  lover 
of  his  kind  whose  affections  are  bounded  by  no  pri- 
vate ties,  whose  brothers  and  sisters  are  all  who 
consent   with  him,    and   whose    bride  is   society. 
Then  it  is  as  if  a  new  sun  were  created  and  set 
a-blazing   to   illumine   and   bless  the   earth.     We 
subjects  of  the  Christian  dispensation  are   living 
on  the  love  of  our  great  Brother,  who  cast  his 

18 


274  LOVE  IS  OF   GOD. 

divine  self  into  the  life  of  the  world,  and  made  it 
richer  and  sweeter  for  all  succeeding  time.  Then, 
and  not  before,  the  idea  of  humanity  dawned  upon 
the  world,  —  mankind  one  family  in  God,  an  or- 
ganic, corporate  whole,  —  many  members  and  one 
body ;  and  Paul,  the  most  far-sighted  of  the  early 
disciples,  anticipating  social  science,  uttered  the 
great  word  so  strange  to  Jewish  and  Gentile  ears : 
"  There  is  neither  Jew  nor  Greek,  tliere  is  neither 
bond  nor  free,  there  is  neither  male  nor  female : 
for  ye  are  all  one  in  Christ  Jesus." 

We  are  members  one  of  another.  The  idea  is 
received ;  but  to  feel  its  import,  to  live  and  work 
in  its  spirit,  is  a  stage  of  progress  which  Christian 
civilization  has  not  attained.  That  it  will  be  at- 
tained, I  hold  it  an  essential  part  of  Christian 
faith  to  believe.  Its  attainment  would  be  the  com- 
ing of  the  kingdom  for  which,  as  taught  by  the 
Master,  the  Church  through  so  many  ages  has 
prayed.  Can  it  be  that  the  prayer  so  commended 
is  a  vain  aspiration,  the  formal  utterance  of  an 
idle  dream  ?  To  suppose  it  is  blasphemy ;  to  be- 
lieve it  is  despair. 

"  Thy  kingdom  come "  is  the  first  prayer  our 
mothers  teach  us ;  it  is  the  last  whose  import  we 
fully  realize.  Infant  lips  all  over  Christendom 
have  stammered  or  will  stammer  this  petition  to- 
day.    If   ever   the  time  shall  come   when  manly 


LOVE  IS   OF  GOD.  275 

hearts  all  over  Christendom  shall  breathe  it  in 
sincerity,  when  manly  wills  all  over  Christendom  " 
shall  adopt  it  in  sincerity,  the  prayer  will  be  an- 
swered, and  Christendom  will  be  as  beautiful  as 
the  dream  of  John  the  divine,  when  he  dreamed  of 
the  crystal  river  and  the  day  without  night. 


XX. 

OUE  LIFE  IS  IN  GOD. 

In  him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being. 

Acts  xvii.  28. 

T  TERE  is  a  view  of  the  Divine  nature  very  dif- 
fercnt  from  that  of  the  current  theology, — 
a  vievr  which  inchides  what  truth  there  is  in  the 
doctrine  known  as  pantheism,  and  yet  is  not  pan- 
theism as  commonly  understood.  Pantheism  as 
commonly  understood  means  that  nothing  exists  but 
God ;  that  all  other  being,  all  rational  as  well  as 
irrational  existences,  are  merely  states  and  modes 
of  the  divine.  Paul  does  not  mean  this.  He  does 
not  say  that  all  being  is  God,  but  that  all  being  is 
in  God.  We  may  concede  to  pantheism  that  all 
finite  existences  partake  of  the  substance  of  God, 
but  not  that  all  agency  is  God's,  not  that  all  action 
is  divine.  The  main  point  is,  that  God  is  not  to 
be  conceived  as  an  insulated  individual  being,  hav- 
ing only  a  governmental  connection  with  the  world. 
The  vulgar  conception  separates  the  Creator  from 
his  creatures,  insulates  him,  enthrones  him  in  soli- 


OUR  LIFE  IS  IN  GOD.  211 

tary  grandeur  in  a  region  of  his  own  far  away  in 
unknown  space ;  it  supposes  the  omnipresence  as- 
cribed to  him  to  be  a  presence  by  knowledge  and 
will,  not  a  substantial  presence,  not  a  presence  in 
person;  it  supposes  that  God  governs  the  world 
not  by  immediate  action,  but  by  deputy,  or  by  a 
prescribed,  self-working  constitution.  Paul,  on  the 
contrary,  conceives  that  God  is  himself  the  con- 
stitution of  things ;  that  he  governs  by  immediate 
action  on  every  part ;  that  he  is  not  in  any  partic- 
ular place,  because  all  places  are  in  him ;  that,  as 
Newton  says,  he  is  everywhere  present,  not  by  his 
power  alone,  but  present  in  substance,  and  is  every- 
where eye,  ear,  hand ;  that  the  life  which  we  lead, 
the  will  by  which  we  act,  are  embraced  in  his 
essence ;  that  all  our  acts  are  comprehended  in  the 
sweep  of  his  will,  all  our  experience  in  the  scope 
of  his  design,  and  finally,  that  we  realize  our  being 
only,  and  have  the  true  enjoyment  of  it  only  as  we 
find  it  in  him. 

"Live,  move,  and  have  our  being," — these  terms 
may  be  considered  as  indicating  three  points  of 
connection,  three  distinct  relations  of  man  with 
God.  They  are  named  in  ascending  order,  and  so 
present  a  graduated  scale  of  human  experience. 
Let  us  take  them  in  the  order  in  which  they  are 
given. 

1.   "  In  him  we  live."     We  are  animated  beings. 


278  OUR  LIFE  IS  IN  GOD. 

The  first  and  lowest  in  human  experience  is  the 
animal  life.  This  we  have  in  common  with  the 
brute  creation,  and  this  lowest  in  our  experience 
is  perhaps  the  most  miraculous.  What  is  so  mi- 
raculous as  life  ?  In  its  simplest,  meanest  form  it 
marks  a  difference  which  is  infinite  between  the 
creations  of  man  and  of  God.  Take  the  cunning- 
est  engine  that  ever  man  invented,  —  and  he  has 
invented  some  that  aptly  mimic  the  functions  of 
Nature,  —  place  it  by  the  side  of  the  simplest  ani- 
mal organism,  a  worm  or  a  moth,  and  see  what  a 
gulf  divides  the  living  creature  from  the  most  in- 
genious inanimate  thing.  Compare  your  watch, 
the  consummate  product  of  human  skill,  with  the 
meanest  reptile.  In  that  little  instrument  the 
science  and  the  art,  the  crafty  invention  and  pa- 
tient elaboration  of  successive  ages  are  represented. 
But  let  the  watch  run  down  and  it  has  no  power  in 
itself  to  renew  its  function ;  the  helping  touch  of 
man  must  be  repeated,  or  all  the  labor  bestowed 
upon  it  is  vain.  It  has  no  self-motion.  That 
which  the  meanest  reptile  possesses  is  wanting  to 
it,  —  the  miracle  of  life.  The  reptile  may  lie  tor- 
pid like  the  watch  run  down,  apparently  dead, 
but  within  the  seemingly  lifeless  form  there  is 
something  going  on ;  the  miracle  of  life  continues, 
which  by  and  by  will  cause  the  creature  to  awake, 
and  without  the  aid  of  any  finite  agent  to  resume 


OUR  LIFE  IS  IN  GOD.  279 

its  functions,  unwind  its  coils,  lift  up  its  head,  and 
crawl  again.  And  when  the  animal  really  dies, 
as  we  say,  when  the  individual  perishes,  when  that 
organism  is  dissolved,  the  miracle  of  life  continues 
still ;  the  atoms  which  composed  it  survive  in  new 
combinations,  new  forms  of  vegetable  and  animal 
nature  spring  from  its  ruins,  and  others  again  will 
spring  from  theirs ;  and  thus  in  an  endless  succes- 
sion of  forms  the  undying  principle  endures. 

The  individual  perishes,  but  the  life  that  was  in 
it  does  not.  Here  is  a  difference  which  is  infinite. 
No  work  of  man's  device  can  ever  of  itself  give  birth 
to  another,  nor  can  the  particles  which  compose  it 
without  human  aid  take  on  new  forms  and  incor- 
porate themselves  with  new  creations.  It  is  within 
the  reach  of  human  ingenuity  to  fabricate  exact 
imitations  of  animal  organisms.  But  no  conceiv- 
able advance  of  art  through  endless  ages  will  ever 
succeed  in  breathing  into  tliose  fabrics  the  breath 
of  life.  If  we  ask  what  it  is  that  thus  broadly 
distinguishes  divine  from  human  creations,  we  find 
ourselves  facing  an  impenetrable  mystery.  We 
call  it  life,  and  that  is  all  we  can  say  about  it. 
Recent  science  has  sought  to  derive  the  multifold 
species  of  plant  and  brute  from  certain  rudimental 
forms,  which  in  process  of  time  are  supposed  to 
have  given  rise  to  all  the  varieties  of  vegetable 
and  animal  life  which  now  overspread  the  earth. 


280  OUR  LIFE  IS  IN  GOD, 

But  the  life  itself,  its  first  beginning  in  those  abo- 
riginal forms,  no  naturalist  by  operation  of  natural 
causes  could  ever  explain.  No  physical  laws,  no 
material  agents,  no  action  of  heat  and  moisture, 
no  favoring  conditions  of  soil  and  clime,  could 
ever  supply  the  desired  link,  could  ever  bridge  the 
portentous  gulf  between  an  inanimate  and  a  living 
thing.  For  the  origin  of  life  all  thoughtful,  honest 
science  must  assume  a  supernatural  cause,  must 
look  to  a  Power  beyond  the  horizon  of  material 
nature,  —  that  Power  which  religion  knows  and 
adores  as  God. 

But  more  than  this  is  implied  in  the  saying,  "  In 
liim  we  live."  It  is  not  enough  to  derive  from  God 
the  beginning  of  life  on  the  earth,  to  suppose  that 
creative  Power  first  started  and  then  left  to  itself 
the  current  of  animated  being,  which  ever  since 
has  flooded  the  world,  "  and  still  keeps  flowing  on." 
What  physical  laws  could  not  originate,  they  can- 
not maintain.  Every  new  birth  of  animated  being 
is  as  much  a  miracle  as  the  first.  Not  an  individ- 
ual in  all  the  realms  of  Nature  is  born  into  the 
world  to-day  but  has  its  life  direct  from  God,  as 
much  so  as  the  first  animalcule  or  the  first  man. 
And  not  only  so,  but  the  preservation,  the  contin- 
uation of  that  life  from  day  to  day,  from  moment 
to  moment,  is  as  much  a  divine  operation  as  its 
first  beginning.     For  life  is  not  to  be  conceived  as 


OUR  LIFE  IS  IN  GOD.  281 

something  detached  from  its  parent  source,  which 
being  imparted  to  any  subject  persists  by  its  own 
inherent  virtue  and  by  generation  propagates  itself 
from  one  to  another,  but  rather  as  a.  constant  flow 
into  countless  forms  of  one  undivided  power.  It 
is  a  childish  conception  which  supposes  that  the 
creature  is  first  made,  and  that  when  completed  the 
life  is  breathed  into  it.  Rather,  the  life  takes  on 
the  form,  and  lays  it  aside  when  it  lists.  For  still 
it  is  the  form,  the  individual,  that  perishes;  the  life 
endures.  And  that  life  is  from  God,  is  in  God ;  in 
fact,  it  is  the  ever-living  God  himself  who  presents 
these  forms,  reveals  himself  in  them,  holds  them 
up  for  a  while,  and  lets  them  drop  when  his  pur- 
pose in  them  and  through  them  is  answered.  And 
this  is  what  is  meant  when  it  is  said,  "In  Him 
we  live." 

2.  We  pass  to  the  next  point  in  Paul's  statement, 
which  is,  that  in  God  we  "  move."  Not  locomotion, 
for  that  is  included  in  animal  life,  but  intellectual 
and  moral  action,  is  to  be  understood  as  intended 
by  this  term.  Not  only  is  the  power  to  act  the  con- 
tinuous gift  of  God,  —  a  power  which  would  cease 
on  the  instant  if  God  for  an  instant  could  cease  to 
impart  it;  but  all  human  action  is  comprehended 
in  the  scheme  of  God,  in  that  divine  process,  that 
steady  onward  movement  by  which  individuals  and 
the  race  are  led  to  their  predetermined  goal.     A 


282  OUR  LIFE  IS  IN  GOD. 

superficial  view  of  life  discovers  so  much  of  seem- 
ing irregularity  and  accident,  of  fatality  and  luck, 
that  one  is  tempted  to  deny  any  meaning  or  pur- 
pose in  human  events,  and  to  fancy  that  the  world 
is  abandoned  to  chance.  But  a  moment's  reflec- 
tion corrects  this  illusion.  It  is  just  as  incredible 
that  the  world  is  governed  by  chance  as  it  is  that 
the  world  was  made  by  chance ;  that  the  course  of 
events  has  no  method  or  purpose,  as  it  is  that  cre- 
ation has  no  plan  or  end.  And  if  the  world  is  not 
governed  by  chance,  if  the  course  of  events  as  a 
whole  is  divinely  determined,  then  the  action  and 
the  destinies  of  each  individual,  as  parts  of  that 
whole,  are  also  determined ;  then  all  private  voli- 
tions are  embraced  in  the  onward  sweep  of  the 
parent  Will,  all  private  fortunes  included  in  the 
scheme  of  divine  rule. 

You  have  had  perhaps  your  own  life  plan,  but 
have  not  succeeded  in  accomplishing  your  ends. 
Unforeseen  or  unavoidable  disasters,  the  fatality  of 
circumstance,  the  opposing  elements,  the  enmity  or 
treachery  of  your  fellow-men,  or  perhaps  your  own 
weakness,  have  caused  the  miscarriage  of  your  cher- 
ished schemes,  and  made  utter  shipwreck  of  your 
fortunes.  You  look  back  on  the  years  that  are  past, 
and  seem  to  yourself  to  have  labored  in  vain,  to  have 
spent  your  strength  for  naught.  Your  bravest  ven- 
tures have  miscarried,  your  fondest  hopes  have  been 


OUR  LIFE  IS  IN  GOD.  283 

rebuffed.  Read  in  the  light  of  your  early  dreams, 
your  life  appears  to  you  a  failure.  It  is  no  such 
thing.  It  matters  comparatively  little ;  and  when 
the  eyes  of  your  spirit  are  opened  you  will  see  and 
acknowledge  that  it  matters  but  little  whether  your 
schemes  concerning  yourself  have  been  adopted  by 
God  and  have  tallied  or  not  with  his  designs  con- 
cerning you.  Your  way  of  life  as  you  planned  it 
has  failed,  has  deviated  widely,  to  your  feeling  sadly, 
from  the  path  you  had  marked  out  for  yourself ;  but 
it  has  not  deviated  one  hair's  breadth  from  the  path 
which  God,  in  whom  we  move,  had  prescribed  for 
your  goings.  You  may  have  seemed  to  yourself 
to  be  failing,  falling,  losing  your  hold  of  life  and 
peace,  but  all  the  while  you  were  moving  in  God ; 
he  has  held  you  in  his  embrace ;  you  could  not 
sink,  or  but  sink  into  him.  Your  life  plan  has 
failed ;  but  he  has  had  his  own  plan  concerning 
you,  and  that  has  been  fulfilled  to  a  tittle.  Believe 
that  his  plan  was  the  wisest  and  best.  It  is  sel- 
dom, I  suppose,  that  the  life  plan  which  any  one 
devises  for  himself  coincides  with  the  plan  of  God 
concerning  him.  That  higher  plan  may  disappoint 
or  it  may  transcend  our  present  expectation ;  but 
who  that  believes  in  God  can  doubt  that  his  plan 
in  the  end  will  be  found  to  surpass  the  wisdom  of 
the  wisest,  and  that  the  goal  to  which  it  leads  will 
transcend  the  most  sanguine  hopes  ?    In  the  final 


284  OUR  LIFE  IS  IN  GOD. 

result,  it  will  appear  that  we  gain  as  well  by  our 
disappointments  and  failures  as  by  our  successes ; 
all  human  experience  leads  to  ultimate  good.  In 
the  beautiful  fable  of  the  poet,  the  wounded  crane 
is  left  bleeding  on  the  strand,  while  the  rest  of  the 
flock  pursue  their  annual  flight  to  the  milder  clime 
of  their  desire, 

"And  speed  with  sounding  wings,  and  scream  witli  joy." 

The  maimed  bird  moans  and  despairs  of  the  goal ; 
but  she  has  lighted  on  a  raft  of  lotus  leaves  and  is 
borne  gently  on  by  wind  and  tide,  while  the  long 
rest  heals  her  wound,  and  so  reaches  at  last  the 
desired  haven. 

The  moving  in  God  which  thus  verifies  itself  in 
the  destiny  of  each  individual,  is  still  more  con- 
spicuous in  the  destiny  of  nations,  in  tlie  history  of 
universal  man.  Viewed  in  its  details,  contem- 
plated at  any  given  point  of  its  annals,  the  world's 
history  seems  a  confused  jumble  of  meaningless 
events.  One  revolution  succeeds  another ;  nations 
rise  and  fall ;  wars  civil  and  foreign,  wars  of  ven- 
geance, and  wars  of  invasion  desolate  the  lands. 
Scarcely  a  year  passes  but  in  one  or  another 
quarter  there  is  tumult  and  fighting  and  distress. 
What  does  it  all  mean,  and  whither  does  it  tend  ? 
Why  cannot  men  live  peacefully  side  by  side  in 
their  native  and   providential  neighborhoods,  till 


OUR  LIFE  IS  IN  GOD.  285 

the  earth,  exchange  their  products,  respect  each 
others'  rights  and  the  brotherhood  of  man  ?  Why 
need  there  be  any  history,  since  wars  and  revolu- 
tions make  history ;  why  any  other  history  than 
the  annals  of  the  house  ?  It  is  a  simple  question, 
and  the  answer  is  equally  simple  :  Because  man 
is  man ;  because  these  things  are  constitutionally 
in  him ;  and,  being  in  him,  must  have  their  way. 
Moreover,  they  are  in  him,  we  must  think,  for 
some  good  purpose  ;  and  we  shall  find,  if  we  study 
their  operation,  that  the  growth  of  man  is  promoted 
by  them,  —  growth  in  knowledge,  and  through  in- 
crease of  knowledge  growth  in  good.  If  these 
things  were  not,  the  world  would  remain  station- 
ary ;  but  the  world  moves,  and  it  moves  in  God. 
He  has  drawn  the  lines  of  his  world  plan  around 
and  through  all  this  confusion  and  strife,  and  is 
working  out  by  it  the  final  triumph  of  his  kingdom 
in  the  world.  There  is  no  accident  in  history ;  it 
has  its  method,  and  the  method  is  God's.  In  every 
war,  each  battle  that  is  fought,  whether  lost  or  won 
for  this  or  that  army,  is  won  by  God.  Every  bat- 
tle that  is  fought,  however  disastrous  for  the  party 
defeated  in  the  conflict,  is  a  victory  for  man.  In 
every  conflict,  whoever  else  may  lose,  whatever 
else  may  suffer,  humanity  wins.  Through  the 
seeming  injustices  of  time,  the  overthrow  of  king- 
doms, the  failure  of  races,  the  extinction  of  hopes, 


286  OUR   LIFE  IS  IN  GOD. 

through  all  violence  and  sacrifice,  humanity  wins 
at  last.  For  humanity  is  God's ;  his  supreme  will 
is  co-present  to  all  its  movements ;  in  him  is  its 
foreordained  path ;  in  him  its  sure  and  sufficing 
goal. 

3.  Finally,  in  him  we  "  have  our  being."  What 
does  that  mean,  as  distinct  from  the  living  and 
moving  in  God  already  discussed  ?  What  is  it  to 
have  our  being  ?  Evidently  something  more  than 
simply  to  be.  To  have  a  treasure  is  consciously  to 
possess  it.  All  creatures  that  exist  have  not  their 
being,  do  not  possess  it  with  a  conscious  hold,  re- 
joicing in  it  on  its  own  account.  Such  having  is 
possible  only  through  the  consciousness  of  God,  in 
whom  and  whose  our  being  is.  To  have  our  being 
is  to  refer  it  to  its  source,  to  receive  it  as  divine, 
to  cherish  it  as  such,  in  spite  of  all  cares  and 
pains  to  feel  it  a  blessing  and  a  joy  to  be.  There 
are  times  when  the  pressure  of  life  with  its  worry 
and  vexation  and  sorrow  of  heart  seems  greater 
than  we  can  bear;  and  when,  if  there  were  nothing 
but  the  fear  of  death  to  restrain  us,  we  would 
gladly  fling  it  away  as  a  weary,  worthless  thing. 
At  such  times  we  have  not  our  being;  we  exist, 
but  possess  not  ourselves;  we  have  lost  our  hold 
of  the  Eternal.  We  feel  ourselves,  as  it  were, 
cut  off  from  the  parent  tree  and  flung  aside  as  a 
severed  branch  to  wither.     It  is  only  by  recurring 


OUR  LIFE  IS  IN  GOD.  287 

to  our  fixed  roots,  by  casting  ourselves  on  our  eter- 
nal belongings ;  it  is  only  by  thinking  ourselves  in 
God,  —  that  solace  and  strength  and  the  courage  of 
life  can  return  to  us  again.  What  matters  it  if 
to-day  and  to-morrow  we  chafe  and  suffer  and  bend 
beneath  the  storm  ?  To-day  and  to-morrow  may 
rain  their  plagues  and  sores  on  our  defenceless 
heads ;  but  are  not  ours  the  eternal  years  ?  Have 
we  not  a  reserve  of  undecaying  strength ;  have  we 
not  exhaustless  resources  in  God,  who  is  our  home  ? 
That  home  abides  through  storm  and  wreck,  and 
in  the  thought  of  it  we  can  feel  secure  when  the 
earthly  home  is  broken  up  and  the  ground  on 
which  we  tread  is  slipping  from  under  us,  know- 
ing that  neither  time  nor  space,  nor  life  nor  death, 
can  separate  us  from  Him  in  whom  we  live  and 
move  and  have  our  being. 


XXL 

THE    COMFORTER. 

It  is  expedient  for  you  that  I  go  aicay :  for  if  I  go 
not  away,  the  Comforter  will  not  come  unto  you  ;  hut  if 
I  depart^  I  will  send  him  unto  you.  John  xvi.  7. 

'T^HE  Comforter,  indeed  !  What  comforter  could 
"^  Jesus  send  to  those  bereaved  followers  of  his, 
that  should  make  good  his  place  when  he  was  gone ; 
and  not  only  so,  but  should  be  so  much  more  to 
them  than  his  ])odily  presence  as  to  make  it  ex- 
pedient that  he  should  depart  ?  Surely  no  foreign 
agency  was  equal  to  this.  They  would  suffer  no 
third  person  to  come  in,  as  comforter,  between 
them  and  their  Master.  Only  Christ  could  replace 
Christ  in  their  hearts. 

The  Comforter  that  Jesus  was  to  send  to  com- 
fort them,  after  his  departure,  was  his  own  spirit. 
"  I  will  not  leave  you  comfortless :  I  will  come  to 
you."  The  Comforter  was  himself,  —  the  spirit 
that  dwelt  in  him,  —  his  idea,  his  influence,  the 
power  of  his  word  and  life.  We  are  accustomed 
to  think  that  personal  presence,  if  not  the  indis- 


THE   COMFORTER.  289 

pensable  condition,  is  at  least  the  best  medium  of 
personal  influence ;  that  a  man  acts  most  power- 
fully when  he  is  in  the  body.  But  Jesus  declares 
that  his  influence  would  be  greater  after  his  depar- 
ture than  it  could  be  during  his  earthly  life ;  that 
in  fact  his  true  influence  could  not  begin  until 
after  his  decease.  "  It  is  expedient  for  you,  that  I 
go  away :  for  if  I  go  not  away,  the  Comforter  will 
not  come  unto  you ;  but  if  I  depart,  I  will  send 
him  unto  you.".  He  would  be  nearer  to  his  own, 
and  he  was  nearer  to  them,  after  his  departure, 
than  he  was  in  the  flesh.  He  is  nearer  to  every 
true  disciple  now,  than  he  was  to  those  who  con- 
versed with  him.  The  departed  Christ  exerted,  and 
exerts,  an  influence  which  the  personally  present 
Christ  could  not.  The  person  had  to  disappear  be- 
fore the  spirit  could  come  and  take  possession  of  the 
soul.  This  is  no  exceptional  case.  The  influence 
of  any  teacher,  the  influence  of  any  good  person, 
all  moral  and  spiritual  influences,  are  enhanced  by 
death.  They  are  greater,  after  the  departure  of 
the  individual  from  whom  they  proceed,  than  they 
were,  or  could  be,  during  his  life.  Death,  which 
dissolves  the  form,  disengages  the  idea,  and  pre- 
sents it  pure,  unmixed  with  foreign  elements  and 
qualifying  personalities. 

We  do  not  cease  entirely,  even  for  this  world, 
when  removed  from  it  by  death.     The  spirit  that 

19 


290  THE   COMFORTER, 

was  in  us,  that  made  itself  manifest  in  our  life  and 
action,  remains  behind  us  when  we  go  hence.  And 
not  only  so,  but  if  it  be  a  good  spirit  that  wrought 
in  us,  it  acquires  from  our  very  going  such  in- 
crease of  meaning  and  of  power  that  it  seems  to 
be  a  coming  again,  a  new  message  from  the  spirit 
world,  a  power  and  comforter  which  we  send  after 
us  to  comfort  and  instruct  the  world  we  have  left. 
Death  is  a  giver,  as  well  as  a  destroyer ;  it  gives 
us  the  idea  of  our  departed  with  added  influence 
and  transfigured  beauty.  We  know  them  better, 
we  appreciate  them  more  justly,  we  are  more  influ- 
enced by  their  example  after  their  departure,  tlian 
during  their  bodily  presence  among  us.  So  that, 
considering  the  better  influence  that  goes  forth  of 
them  when  they  have  put  off  their  mortality,  it 
might  seem  expedient  that  they  should  go  away,  in 
order  that  the  spirit  which  was  in  them  may  come 
to  us  and  act  upon  us  as  it  could  not  come  and 
act  when  thcv  were  with  us. 

If  ever  it  has  happened  to  you  to  lose  a  near  and 
valued  friend,  whose  character  commanded  your 
respect,  —  one  valued  for  his  or  her  moral  quali- 
ties,  as  well  as  endeared  by  relation  and  friend- 
ship,—  and  especially  if  such  a  friend  was  taken 
imexpectedly  and  seemingly  prematurely  from  your 
side ;  if  ever  this  experience  has  been  yours,  you 
will  bear  witness   that   the   character  of  the  de- 


THE   COMFORTER.  291 

ceased  never  seemed  to  you  so  worthy  of  respect, 
nor  ever  so  strongly  impressed  you ;  that  you 
were  never  so  disposed  to  be  guided  by  it  and  to 
act  in  the  spirit  of  the  departed ;  that  you  never 
felt  that  spirit  so  near  as  when  withdrawn  from 
your  senses  by  the  putting  off  of  the  mortal  form 
through  which  you  conversed  with  it.  "  God," 
says  a  contemporary,  "  only  lends  us  the  objects 
of  our  affection ;  the  affection  itself  he  gives  us  in 
perpetuity.  In  this  sense  instances  are  not  rare 
in  which  the  friend  or  the  parent  then  first  begins 
to  live  for  us  when  death  has  withdrawn  him 
from  our  eyes  and  given  him  over  exclusively  to 
our  hearts.  I  have  known  a  mother,  among  the 
sainted  blest,  sway  the  will  of  a  thoughtful  child 
far  more  than  her  living  voice ;  brood  with  a  kind 
of  serene  omnipresence  over  his  affections,  and 
sanctify  his  passing  thought  by  the  mild  vigilance 
of  her  pure  and  loving  eye.  And  what  better  life 
could  she  have  for  him  than  this  ? " 

Such  is,  or  may  be,  the  influence  of  the  departed 
in  the  sphere  of  the  family.  But  most  of  us  have 
other  relations  to  our  fellow-men  than  that  of  the 
family.  We  occupy,  with  our  word  and  action  and 
example,  a  wider  sphere  than  the  household  life. 
An  influence  goes  forth  of  us  to  all  with  whom  we 
are  connected,  to  all  with  whom  business  or  acci- 
dent brings  us  in  contact,  and  even  to  those  who 


292  THE   COMFORTER. 

know  us  only  by  report.  •  And  when  we  decease 
from  the  sphere  of  this  world,  our  influence  does 
not  decease,  but  stays  behind  us  as  a  second  self, 
an  invisible  presence  to  counsel  and  to  cheer,  —  if 
in  us,  while  living,  there  was  anything  from  which 
counsel  or  cheer  could   come.     It  may  act  more 
powerfully  through  our  memory  than  it  could  do 
through  our   person.     Especially  is  this  the  case 
when  a  friend  or  fellow-citizen  has  been  removed  in 
the  vigor  of  his  years,  and  in  the  midst  of  works 
and  promise,  and  when  the  death  was  sudden  and 
attended  with  circumstances  peculiarly  painful  and 
impressive.      These   serve  as  a  background  from 
which   the   character   of    the   departed    derives   a 
stronger  relief,  and  his  influence  an  added  force 
in   the   circle   in  which   he   moved   and  wrought. 
Such  deaths  we  term  untimely,  and  they  are  apt  to 
suggest  questions  of  God's  providence  and  doubts 
of  that  supreme  wisdom  which  piety  claims  for  the 
course  of  things.     We  think,  with  impatience,  how 
many  worthless  beings,  whose  existence  is  a  bur- 
den and  a  plague  to  society,  are  permitted  to  live 
on ;  while  the  active  citizen,  who  lived  but  to  bless, 
the  Christian  philanthropist,   whom  society  cher- 
ished as  a  necessary  element  in  its  organism,  is 
stricken  from  the  civic  roll,  and  swept  from  the 
family  circle,  —  leaving,  instead  of  a  vital  and  be- 
neficent force,  a  miserable  blank  behind.     But  if 


THE   COMFORTER.  293 

we  view  these  cases  calmly  and  hopefully,  we  may 
find  in  them  that  which  shall  justify  the  ways  of 
God  to  the  understanding,  as  to  faith  they  are 
already  justified.  We  may  find  in  the  heightened 
impression  and  added  value  which  such  departures 
give  to  the  character  and  life  of  the  departed,  and 
the  consequent  accession  of  moral  influence  which 
comes  from  their  idea  to  those  who  rejoiced  in 
their  presence  and  who  lament  their  going,  —  we 
may  find  here  a  reason  why  it  was  expedient  for 
them  to  go  away,  seeing  they  could  send  such  a 
spirit  and  comforter  after  them  to  replace  their 
person  and  requite  their  loss. 

A  complete  life,  according  to  the  common  idea, — 
that  is,  a  lengthened  life  of  active  usefulness,  gen- 
tly subsiding  into  old  age,  and  gradually  terminat- 
ing in  slow  decay,  —  would  seem  to  be  the  order  of 
nature.  Such  a  life  we  regard  as  the  true  ideal  of 
human  existence.  It  is  the  violation  of  this  order, 
the  contrast  with  this  ideal,  that  makes  a  shortened 
life,  abruptly  closing  in  the  midst  of  its  years,  so 
impressive.  The  feeling  of  incompleteness  which 
attaches  to  such  a  life,  the  indefinite  possibilities  for 
which  we  gave  it  credit,  the  promise  (now  never  to 
be  fulfilled)  of  great  achievements  which  we  dis- 
cerned in  it,  —  all  tend  to  bring  out  and  to  glorify 
the  idea  of  the  individual  so  doomed,  and  to  make 
its  action  on  us  more   effective-  than  perhaps  it 


294  THE   COMFORTER. 

would  have  been  if  the  course  of  nature  had  been 
fulfilled.  We  indemnify  ourselves  for  our  disap- 
pointment in  the  actual,  by  devoutly  cherishing 
the  ideal.  We  enthrone  the  departed  in  our  hearts, 
and  make  him  one  of  the  comforters  and  lights  of 
our  life. 

"  It  is  expedient  for  you  that  I  go  away."  Meas- 
ured by  earthly  standards,  the  life  of  Jesus  was  sin- 
gularly incomplete,  singularly  abrupt  and  untimely 
his  departure.  After  one  or  two  years  devoted  to 
popular  instruction  and  active  beneficence,  in  his 
thirty-second  or  thirty -third  year, —  as  is  commonly 
supposed, —  at  an  age  when  most  men  have  scarcely 
arrived  at  tlie  full  maturity  of  their  powers,  or  be- 
gun to  act  with  marked  and  appreciable  effect  on 
their  time,  he  is  snatched  from  the  world  by  a 
violent  and  awful  death.  According  to  human 
calculations,  what  a  failure  was  here,  and  how 
much  better  it  would  have  been  had  such  a  life 
been  spared,  and  permitted  to  complete  the  ordi- 
nary term  of  mortal  years.  If  in  two  or  three 
years  so  much  was  accomplished,  what  might  not 
a  ministry  of  thirty  years  have  done  for  mankind  ? 
So  we  reckon,  vainly  thinking  to  measure  moral 
results  by  material  quantities,  and  to  gauge  the 
spirit  of  God  by  calendar  years,  as  if  the  salva- 
tion of  man  were  an  arithmetical  problem,  —  so 
many  saved  by  a  two  years'  ministry,  how  many 


THE   COMFORTER.  295 

would  thirty  years  save  ?  The  issues  of  spirit  are 
incommensurable  with  sections  of  time  or  with 
any  finite  measure.  A  truer  appreciation  of  spir- 
itual laws  and  divine  methods  will  teach  us  that 
Christ  accomplished  more  in  the  shorter  term  than 
he  would  have  done  in  a  longer ;  that  he  accom- 
plished more  by  his  death  than  he  would  have 
done  by  a  lengthened  life. 

If  we  attempt  to  imagine  to  ourselves  a  different 
issue  from  that  ordained  and  historic  one;  if  we 
conceive  of  Jesus  as  happily  escaping  the  machi- 
nations of  his  enemies,  and  finally  outliving  their 
hostility,  persisting  in  his  work  of  instruction  and 
healing,  travelling  from  place  to  place  with  wise 
counsels  and  kind  deeds,  living  on  from  year  to 
year,  growing  old  in  that  ministry  of  love,  and  pass- 
ing away  at  last  in  extreme  age, — if  we  imagine  all 
this,  instead  of  the  judgment-hall  and  the  cross,  we 
have  certainly  a  more  agreeable  picture  for  the 
mind's  eye  to  contemplate.  But  the  more  we  dwell 
upon  it,  the  more  we  shall  feel  its  inadequacy,  con- 
sidered as  a  means  to  the  great  end  of  the  world's 
redemption  by  Christ.  The  more  we  shall  miss  in 
it  the  element  of  strength  that  lay  in  that  very 
shock  which  the  cross  inflicted  on  believing  and 
loyal  hearts,  the  miraculous  impulse  which  came 
from  the  sense  of  outraged  justice  and  love,  the 
inspiration  breathed  by  the  terror  and  the  grief 


296  THE   COMFORTER. 

of  Calvary,  the  haunting  presence  and  pressing 
admonition  of  the  "  Master's  marred  and  wounded 
mien,"  coupled  and  contrasted  with  the  bursting 
joy  of  the  resurrection ;  we  shall  miss  the  divine 
fury  which  possessed  those  disciples,  which  in- 
fected their  hearers  and  spread  its  fierce  contagion 
fi'om  the  Persian  Gulf  to  the  foot  of  the  Pyrenees, 
which  made  the  Chlirch  a  consuming  fire  to  burn 
and  purge  the  world.  These  are  the  influences 
which  made  the  Gospel  to  prevail,  and  planted  a 
heavenly  kingdom  on  the  earth.  And  for  these 
the  world  is  indebted  to  the  cross,  to  the  early 
and  painful  termination  of  the  ministry  of  Christ. 
All  this  would  have  been  wanting  to  the  milder 
fate,  which  we  have  supposed,  of  a  lengthened 
life  and  a  peaceful  close.  It  is  no  mere  figure  of 
speech  which  the  Christian  world  makes  use  of, 
when  it  ascribes  its  salvation  to  the  death  of 
Christ.  It  was  his  death  that  interpreted  his  life, 
—  that  gave  to  his  idea  its  just  relief,  its  true  im- 
port and  rightful  influence.  It  was  his  death 
that,  interposing  at  mid-tide,  when  life  was  at  its 
flood,  threw  open  the  sluices  of  that  life  to  water 
the  earth ;  that  delivered  the  spirit  of  Christ  from 
the  narrow  confinement  of  a  person  and  made  it 
an  impersonal  and  prevailing  power.  We  see  how 
expedient,  in  this  sense,  his  going  was.  It  was 
God's  expedient  for  securing  his  triumph.     Hav- 


THE   COMFORTER.  297 

ing  gone  as  an  individual,  he  was  to  come  again  as 
the  spirit  of  truth  and  love. 

And  he  did  come,  —  with  what  effect  let  the 
spread  of  his  name  and  the  triumphs  of  his  truth 
in  Christian  ages  declare.  He  came  to  the  early 
Church,  in  their  day  of  weakness,  when  an  upper 
chamber  in  a  private  house  was  large  enough  for 
all  Christendom  to  assemble  in.  He  visited  them 
with  those  pentecostal  inspirations,  which  opened 
their  lips  with  power,  and  overflowed  their  hearts 
with  joy. 

*'  He  came  in  tongues  of  living  flame, 
To  teach,  convince,  subdue ; 
All  powerful  as  the  wind  he  came. 
As  viewless  too." 

He  came  to  Saul,  on  the  way  to  Damascus,  and 
poured  himself  into  that  chosen  vessel  to  be  car- 
ried by  him  round  the  world.  He  came  to  his 
own,  —  how  often  in  the  long  agony  of  persecuting 
centuries,  —  and  his  own  did  receive  him ;  and  as 
many  as  received  him,  to  them  he  gave  power  to 
become  the  sons  of  God.  He  came  to  them  in 
stripes  and  bonds,  and  replenished  them  with  the 
comforts  of  the  Holv  Ghost.  He  made  them  bold 
to  face  an  empire's  wrath,  and  strong  to  bear  an 
empire's  rod.  Through  him  they  "  subdued  king- 
doms, . . .  stopped  the  mouths  of  lions,  quenched  the 
violence  of  fire,  .  .  .  turned  to  flight  the  armies  of 


298  THE   COMFORTER. 

the  aliens."  He  still  comes  to  all  who  will  receive 
him.  He  comes  in  every  strong  conviction,  in 
every  earnest  purpose,  in  every  holy  aspiration 
which  visits  believing  souls.  Wherever  good  men 
and  true  are  gathered  together  in  his  name,  —  in 
the  name  of  Christian  truth  and  righteousness,  — 
he  is  with  them  to  the  end  of  the  world. 

"  If  I  go  not  away,  the  Comforter  will  not  come 
unto  you;  but  if  I  depart,  I  will  send  him  unto  you." 
The  person  must  depart,  that  the  indwelling  spirit 
may  come  in  all  its  purity,  and  act  with  its  greatest 
power.  For  tliough  the  person  is  a  necessary  me- 
dium of  spiritual  influence  up  to  a  certain  point, — 
that  is,  until  the  spirit  it  represents  is  introduced 
to  the  world,  —  when  once  that  spirit  is  planted 
and  started,  the  person  may  be  only  a  confinement 
and  a  hindrance,  occasioning  confusion  between 
that  which  is  personal  and  that  which  is  spiritual, 
between  the  accidental  and  the  absolute,  the  partial 
and  the  universal.  There  are  Christians  who  still 
confound  these  distinctions  in  the  case  of  Christ, 
after  so  long^  a  lapse  of  years,  for  whom  Jesus  the 
person  has  not  yet  gone  away,  and  the  Comforter 
not  yet  come ;  who  see  in  him  only  what  is  partial 
and  historical,  and  regard  not  the  absolute  and 
universal  truth  for  which  he  stands,  —  the  eternal 
Word'  incarnated  in  him. 

What  is  true   of   our  theology,   is   it   not  also 


THE   COMFORTER.  299 

true  of  our  human  relations  ?     We  think  too  much 
of  the  person  and  too  little  of  spirit.     We  anchor 
our   existence    on   the   perishing   forms  in   which 
God   has    embodied    his    everlasting    ideas  ;    and 
when  the  form  is  withdrawn,  we  feel  as  if  noth- 
ing were  left,  as  if  our  moorings  were  cast,  and 
we  adrift  on  the  merciless  flood.     Yet  let  us  re- 
member that  what  is  valuable  and   lovable  in  a 
friend  is  not  the  visible  which  perishes,  but  the 
invisible  which  remains ;  not  the  form  in  your  eye, 
but  the  idea  in  your  mind.     Was  there  anything 
noble,  winning,  lieroic,  or  saintly  in  the  being  now 
deceased   from   your   eyes?     It  is  still  here,  and 
more  truly  here,  more  broadly  and  intensely  pres- 
ent and  active  than  before;    a  spirit,  about  and 
within ;  a  thought  in  the  mind ;  a  whisper  at  the 
heart ;   a  motion  in  the  will ;   an  image   in  your 
dream. 

And  so  we  are  surrounded  by  spirits  of  the 
departed,  — not  in  the  coarse  sense  of  personal 
entities  lurking  in  the  air,  but  in  the  sense  of 
memories,  ideas,  immaterial  comforters  and  guides. 
I  said  surrounded,  — I  should  have  said  we  are 
made  up  of  them.  Our  life  is  composed  of  many 
lives,  —  myriads  of  spirits  are  absorbed  in  ours. 
All  who  once  have  lived  in  this  world  are  still  here. 
They  have  bequeathed  an  idea,  they  have  left  a 
spirit,  which  humanity  has,  consciously  or  uncon- 


300  THE   COMFORTER. 

sciously,  appropriated,  assimilated,  and  made  a  part 
of  its  complex  life.  And  we,  when  we  go  hence, 
must  add  our  contribution,  be  it  good  or  evil,  to 
this  vast  sum.  The  spirit  that  was  in  us,  the  idea 
which  we  represent  in  our  life,  will  remain  when 
our  person  has  vanished  from  the  scenes  of  time. 
It  will  remain  when  our  memory  has  perished 
from  the  mind  of  man.  May  our  word  and  act 
be  such,  that  the  spirit  which  we  leave  behind  us 
shall  be  a  living  and  beneficent  power  to  society. 
When  we  go  away  in  person,  as  soon  we  must, 
may  we  come  again  in  spirit,  and  be  as  comforters 
to  those  that  remain  and  to  those  that  come  after ! 


XXII. 

ALL   SOULS'   DAY. 

I  ivould  not  have  you  to  be  ignorant,  hretJiren,  con- 
cerning them  which  are  asleep.  i  Thess.  iv.  13. 
God  is  not  the  God  of  the  dead,  but  of  the  living. 

Matt.  xxii.  32. 

npmS  day,  this  second  of  November,  in  many 
■^  parts  of  the  Christian  world  is  devoted  to  the 
commemoration  of  the  dead.  On  the  day  preced- 
ing,—  on  the  first  of  November,  "All  Saints'  Day," 
—  the  Roman  Church  celebrates  the  memory  of  the 
"  Saints, "  distinctively  so  called,  —  the  heroes  and 
elect  of  Christian  history.  To-day  the  celebration 
embraces,  in  the  way  of  affectionate  remembrance 
if  not  of  praise,  all  our  departed  friends.  On 
this  day,  in  Catholic  countries,  surviving  kin- 
dred visit  the  graves  of  their  beloved,  and  while 
renewing  the  wreaths  on  their  sepulchres,  renew 
the  memory  of  a  friendship  which  death  could  not 
conquer,  and  confess  the  still  subsisting  force  of 
ties  which  the  grave  does  not  sever,  of  obliga- 
tions which  the  grave  does  not  cancel.     In  the 


302  ALL   SOULS'   DAY. 

gayest  of  modern  cities,  in  Paris,  the  capital  of 
pleasure,  the  world  of  fashion  adjourns  this  day 
from  boulevard  and  saloon  to  the  place  of  the 
dead,  and  with  tender  recollections  and  offices  of 
love  holds  spiritual  converse  with  the  spirit 
world. 

For  what  converse  with  spirits  is  possible  to  man 
in  the  flesh  but  that  of  thought  and  feeling,  of 
memory,  aspiration,  love,  —  the  fellowship  of  the 
'spirit.  The  fellowship  of  the  spirit  is  unbroken; 
the  soul's  relations  with  souls  remain.  Whether 
lodged  in  the  flesh,  or  however  housed,  —  in  si)irit 
they  are  not  divided.  There  is  a  bridge,  though 
idle  curiosity  has  found  none,  —  a  bridge  from 
the  world  of  sense  to  yonder  side.  Memory  and 
Love  are  the  high  pontiffs  that  span  the  gulf 
and  maintain  unworded  communications  between 
the  two. 

All  souls  are  concerned  in  this  mediation,  and, 
it  may  be,  are  moments  and  articulations  of  it. 
Physical  science  suggests  the  existence  of  a  subtle 
ether  pervading  space  and  permeating  all  the  sys- 
tems which  space  enfolds,  thus  furnishing  the 
necessary  medium  of  communication  by  which  light 
and  other  influences  are  transmitted  from  world  to 
world ;  for  science  will  have  no  waste  void.  The 
spiritual  world  is  no  more  a  void  than  the  mate- 
rial ;  not  a  vacuum  is  it,  but  a  plenum,  —  a  world 


ALL   SOULS'   DAY,  803 

all  filled  and  filling  all.  God  and  his  spirits,  oc- 
cupying all  with  all  fulness,  — they  in  him,  and  he 
through  them,  —  are  the  circulating  and  pervading 
medium  by  which  thought  and  feeling  are  con- 
ducted and  transmitted  from  soul  to  soul  and  from 
sphere  to  sphere.  Wherever  we  may  be  in  space 
the  world  of  spirits  is  with  us,  and  we  should  see, 
if  the  eyes  of  the  spirit  were  opened,  as  the  servant 
of  Elisha  saw  when  the  armies  of  the  Syrian  con- 
founded him.  "Fear  not,"  said  Elisha,  "for  they 
that  be  with  us  are  more  than  they  that  be  with 
them."  "And  the  Lord  opened  the  eyes  of  the 
young  man ;  and  he  saw :  and  behold,  the  mountain 
was  full  of  horses  and  chariots  of  fire  round  about 
Elisha."  The  visible  associates  with  whom  we 
converse,  the  dwellers  on  this  earth,  are  not  the 
only  companions  of  our  being.  Everywhere  the 
army  of  the  unseen  encompasses  us;  and  not  an 
individual  in  the  countless  host  but  is  in  some  way 
connected  with  us,  —  if  not  related  in  the  bonds  of 
personal  friendship,  yet  still  related  in  humanity 
and  in  God. 

The  feast  of  All  Souls  is  a  recognition  of  this 
bond  and  fellowship  of  spirit,  which  not  only  an- 
nuls all  distinctions  of  caste  and  creed  and  clime, 
but  reaches  beyond  the  bounds  of  time,  transcends 
this  mortal  life,  and  connects  us  dwellers  in  the 
dust  with  departed  souls.     It  invites  us  to  consider 


304  ^I^L   SOULS'   DAY. 

our  relation  with  the  dead  in  its  threefold  aspect 
and  degree  as  one  of  friendship,  of  gratitude  and 
debt,   and  of  spiritual  affinity. 

1.  Our  relation  with  the  dead  is  one  of  friend- 
ship. We  are  bound  to  departed  souls  by  personal 
affections.  Our  own  kindred  are  of  that  number ; 
for  who  can  advance  many  steps  in  life  without 
sending  from  the  circle  of  his  own  some  loved  and 
loving  representative  as  his  forerunner  and  media- 
tor with  the  invisible  ?  We  know  not,  we  cannot 
divine,  in  what  form  and  fashion  the  spirit  survives 
that  has  put  off  this  material  by  which  we  con- 
versed with  it,  or  whether  in  the  course  of  our 
immortal  career  there  shall  be  a  renewal  of  that 
converse,  face  to  face,  with  mutual  remembrance 
of  former  relations.  But  this  we  know,  —  that  the 
soul  which  was  bound  to  us  by  a  true  relation  of 
mutual  love  and  loyal  friendship,  which  has 
wrought  on  our  souls  with  enduring  influence,  is 
bound  to  us  forever.  The  parent  who  trained  our 
childhood,  the  child  who  has  trained  our  maturer 
years,  the  trusting  friend  whom  we  held  to  our 
hearts  with  a  trusting  embrace,  —  these  can  never 
be  lost  to  us ;  they  can  never  be  entirely  divorced 
from  our  souls.  And  though  we  may  never,  in 
the  ordinations  of  Eternal  Wisdom,  meet  again 
with  mutual  recognition,  yet  what  they  have  been 
to  us  has  so  inwrought  itself  into  all  the  texture 


ALL  SOULS'  DAY.  305 

of  our  being,  has  become  so  essential  a  constituent 
of  our  nature,  that  no  lapse  of  time,  nor  remote- 
ness of  place,  nor  diversity  of  fortune,  nor  inequal- 
ity of  development,  nor  the  dissolutions  of  death, 
nor  the  sundering  of  soul  and  spirit,  nor  the  wear 
and  tear  of  ages,  can  ever  rend  that  experience 
from  our  lives  or  sever  the  being  so  related  to  us 
from  our  thought.  So  long  as  we  remember  our- 
selves, that  being  will  remain  a  fixed  idea  in  our 
minds.  And  though  we  should  cease  to  remember 
our  present  self,  though  unforeseen  convulsions  of 
Nature,  or  the  friction  of  time,  or  the  ever  unfold- 
ing life  of  the  soul  should  erase  the  past  from  our 
recollection,  and  this  earth-life  with  all  its  expe- 
riences should  vanish  like  a  dream  of  childhood 
from  our  thought,  still  the  consequences  of  that 
connection,  its  influence  on  our  character,  its  re- 
sult in  our  destiny,  will  endure,  a  fixed  fact,  an 
indestructible  element  of  our  being.  I  say,  then, 
that  our  relation  to  the  dead  is  first  a  relation  of 
friendship  and  personal  affection. 

2.  In  the  next  degree  it  is  one  of  gratitude 
and  debt,  of  benefits  conferred  and  received,  of 
service  on  one  side  and  obligation  on  the  other. 
The  dead  belong  to  us  by  their  works;  we  are 
living  on  the  fruit  of  their  labors.  Our  life  is 
rooted  in  and  nourished  by  the  past ;  and  the  past 
is  only  a  name  for  the  thoughts  and  efforts  and 

20 


306  ALL   SOULS'   DAY. 

products  of  those  who  have  gone  before  us  in  the 
march  of  humanity,  and  left  traces  and  fruits  of 
their  being  and  doing  behind.  The  departed  are 
our  teachers,  our  counsellors,  our  benefactors. 
The  arts  by  which  we  live,  the  cities  we  inhabit, 
the  books  which  instruct  us,  the  very  language  by 
which  we  communicate  with  our  kind,  —  all  these 
are  so  many  links  which  connect  us  with  the  dead. 
Not  a  day  passes  but  we  avail  ourselves  of  their 
ministry,  and  bring  into  requisition  the  works  and 
devices  of  a  countless  multitude  whose  names  in 
part  have  come  down  to  us  and  in  part  are  lost  to 
us  forever,  but  whose  benefactions  have  passed  into 
the  treasury  of  human  life  and  become  inalienable 
possessions  of  the  race.  They  have  labored,  and 
we  have  entered  into  their  labors.  We  are  living 
on  the  dead ;  our  life,  like  the  coral  islands  reared 
by  insects  from  the  bosom  of  the  deep,  is  made 
up  of  the  contributions  of  myriads  of  minds  and 
hands  that  have  toiled  for  us  in  the  fields  of  this 
world,  and  made  it  fruitful  for  all  who  come  after. 
Our  whole  civilization  is  a  bequest,  and  by  it 
and  in  it  we  stand  related  to  the  army  of  the  un- 
seen, —  a  countless  host  of  teachers,  benefactors, 
saviours.  We  come  to  the  participation  of  their 
thought;  we  are  made  partakers  of  the  heritage  of 
their  example  and  the  fruit  of  their  labors. 

3.    Our  relation  to  the  dead   is  a   relation  of 


ALL   SOULS'   DAY.  307 

affinity,  — the  bond  of  one  nature,  of  a  common 
humanity.  The  dead  are  our  fellow-men,  still 
our  fellow-men.  In  removing  from  this  visible 
world  they  have  not  withdrawn  from  the  great 
family  of  man.  On  the  contrary,  they  are  more 
truly  human  —  I  speak  of  the  glorified  dead  —  than 
before.  Humanity  in  them  is  more  fully  devel- 
oped; the  image  of  God  in  them  more  perfectly 
brought  out,  more  fitly  expressed.  We  are  related 
to  them  as  men.  For  the  same  reason  that  we  are 
taught  to  regard  as  brethren  all  men,  of  every 
zone  and  nation,  of  every  tongue  and  kindred  and 
religion,  for  the  same  reason  should  we  recognize 
as  brethren  the  departed  who  belong  to  the  same 
spiritual  household,  the  same  moral  brotherhood 
with  ourselves;  and  with  even  greater  reason, 
because,  as  I  have  said,  they  are  more  truly  hu- 
man. If  Christian  sentiment  will  not  suffer  the 
intervening  ocean  to  be  a  barrier  to  our  sympa- 
thies, if  it  bids  us  extend  the  right  hand  of  brother- 
hood to  the  dwellers  in  a  distant  clime  and  to 
cultivate  friendly  relations  with  our  antipodes,  how 
much  rather  should  we  fold  in  our  regard  and 
comprehend  in  our  heart's  embrace  the  departed, 
whom  not  the  wide  ocean  but  the  narrow  stream  of 
death,  the  thin  film  of  mortality,  divides,  or,  it 
may  be,  does  not  divide  from  our  communion  ? 
How  much  nearer  to  us  are  the  dead  whom  we 


308  ALL  SOULS'   DAY, 

know  through  their  history,  with  whom  we  have 
conversed  through  their  works,  with  whom,  it  may- 
be, we  once  conversed  face  to  face,  —  how  much 
nearer  through  their  idea  which  remains  to  us, 
which  haunts  us  still,  —  than  the  mass  of  our 
contemporaries,  who  are  separated  from  us  not  only 
by  interjacent  space,  but  by  faith,  country,  lan- 
guage, by  all  those  habitudes  which  are  most  char- 
acteristic of  our  respective  states,  and  who  for 
the  most  part  are  to  us  as  though  they  were  not  ? 
While,  then,  we  cherish  the  thought  that  all  men 
on  all  the  face  of  the  earth  are  our  brethren,  we 
will  feel  also  that  all  the  spirits  of  the  departed  in 
all  the  mansions  of  God  are  our  brethren  also. 
We  will  make  room  in  our  affection  for  all  souls. 

Our  relation  to  the  dead  is  that  of  a  common  na- 
ture. We  are  related  to  them  by  a  common  intelli- 
gence, by  the  joint  possession  of  those  truths  which 
we  hold  in  common  with  all  intelligent  natures, 
whether  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body,  whether  in 
this  mundane  sphere  or  wherever  they  may  have 
their  abode.  There  are  not  two  kinds  of  intelli- 
gence. It  is  one  and  the  same  universal  reason 
which  pervades  and  informs  all  orders  of  being 
from  intelligent  man  to  the  highest  archangel. 
Whatever  is  truth  here,  is  truth  in  every  sphere  of 
being.  The  spirits  who  have  preceded  us  in  the 
order  of  time,  who  are  now,   it  may  be,   exalted 


ALL   SOULS'   DAY.  309 

above  us  in  the  order  of  being,  — they  too  are  in- 
formed by  the  same  Wisdom,  and  fed  from  the 
same  Fountain  of  divine  illumination.  As  intelli- 
gent and  moral  beings  we  are  related  to  all  the 
dead;  we  belong  to  an  innumerable  company  of 
angels,  all  irradiated  by  the  same  intelligence,  all 
amenable  to  the  same  law,  all  confessing  the  same 
high  calling.  There  is  not  an  angel  of  the  heavenly 
host  but  shares  with  us  the  same  essential  human- 
ity, but  relates  to  us,  ay,  and  appeals  to  us  by  that 
common  nature  which  has  the  heavens  as  well  as 
the  earth  for  its  use  and  unfolding. 

"  '  Mortal,'  the  angels  say, 
*  Peace  to  thy  heart ! 
We  too,  0  mortal, 
Have  been  as  thou  art. 


Ye  too,'  they  gently  say, 
'  Angels  shall  be ; 
Ye  too,  0  mortals. 
From  earth  shall  be  free. 
Yet  in  earth's  loved  ones 
Still  shall  have  part, 
Bearing  God's  strength  and  love 
To  the  torn  heart.'  " 

When  we  say  man,  we  include  the  whole  family 
in  heaven  and  on  earth  —  angels  and  mortals  — 
in  one  designation.  We  include  in  that  name  the 
chosen  Son  of  Man,  "  of  whom, "  says  the  apostle, 
"the  whole  family  in  heaven  and  earth  is  named." 
And  so  we  may  call  our  relation  to  the  dead  a 


310  ALL   SOULS'   DAY. 

Christian  relation.  Humanity,  terrestrial  and  ce- 
lestial, is  one  body  in  Christ,  the  ideal  Head,  sub- 
ject of  one  divine  dispensation  of  truth  and  grace 
which  embraces  all,  both  mortal  and  angel,  in  one 
calling  and  hope.  Mortal  and  angel  are  equally 
heirs  of  God,  joint  heirs  with  Christ  in  the  heritage 
of  glory.  This  Christian  fellowship  transcends  all 
other  relations.  In  Christ  we  are  first  divinely 
one,  as  being  one  with  God,  in  whose  unity  all 
difference  is  reconciled  and  all  contradiction 
solved. 

And  this  fellowship  we  believe  embraces  not 
those  alone  who  are  technically  called  Christians, 
who  called  themselves  such  on  earth,  but  the  loyal 
and  loving  of  all  religions,  of  all  time.  The  true 
Church  is  the  largest  communion  of  man  with 
man,  —  the  fellowship  of  the  spirit,  the  league  of 
all  souls  that  love  the  truth  and  seek  the  right. 

So  then,  by  ties  of  affection,  by  social  obliga- 
tions, by  human  affinities,  by  spiritual  fellowship, 
we  relate  to  the  great  congregation  of  the  dead. 
Such  are  the  terms  of  that  society  which  embraces 
all  souls  in  its  capable  communion. 

The  contemplation  has  a  practical  significance 
and  tendency  for  those  who  entertain  it.  It  tends 
to  expand  the  horizon  of  the  heart.  It  stretches 
our  sympathy  to  a  largeness  which  takes  in  the 
whole  family  of  man  in  heaven  and  earth,  —  of  man 


ALL   SOULS'   DAY.  311 

in  all  the  relations  of  life,  in  all  stages  of  being. 
It  makes  ridiculous  the  paltry  distinctions  of  caste 
and  clique,  the  sorry  limitations  of  calling  and 
custom,  which  tether  our  affections.  The  world 
is  large,  and  the  human  family  is  large  and  catho- 
lic, if  we  would  but  see  and  understand  how  large 
it  is,  and  not  bind  ourselves  to  that  infinitesimal 
portion  of  it  with  which  we  are  connected  by  the 
accidents  of  life.  We  shut  ourselves  up  in  little 
circles  of  our  own,  of  which  calling  and  fashion 
and  prejudice  describe  the  circumference,  and  keep 
the  keys.  We  associate  in  clans,  and  forget  what 
a  world  it  is  to  which  we  belong.  We  are  not 
worthy  to  live  in  this  great  wide  universe  if  we 
isolate  ourselves  in  separate  folds,  and  have  no 
communion  with  our  kind  beyond  the  conventional 
walls  in  which  custom  and  accident  have  immured 
us.  We  may  venture  to  affirm  that  in  heaven 
"  there  are  no  clans  or  cliques,  no  exclusive  circles, 
no  vulgar  and  respectable,  no  high  or  low. "  There 
is  but  one  distinction  which  crosses  the  grave ;  that 
is  the  distinction  of  good  and  bad ;  that  pervades 
all  orders  and  stages  of  the  moral  world.  It 
bisects  the  universe;  all  other  distinctions  are 
merged  in  it.  Let  us  learn  the  full  significance  of 
that  distinction,  and  we  shall  rate  at  their  true 
value  the  lesser  and  subordinate  distinctions  which 
divide  man  from  man.     Let  us  feel  how  small  a 


312  ALL   SOULS'   DAY. 

thing  is  class  or  calling,  how  small  is  even  country 
and  race  compared  with  the  great  household  of 
spirits  in  which  all  these  are  comprehended.  Let 
us  feel  how  great  and  glorious  a  thing  it  is  to  be 
of  that  household,  to  be  truly  man,  a  rational 
soul,  an  undying  spirit;  and  let  our  triumph  be 
this, — that  we  are  called  to  join  that  innumer- 
able company  in  the  unwalled  city  of  God,  to 
sit  down  at  the  feast  of  all  souls  in  heavenly 
communion. 

Again,  our  contemplation  of  the  departed  re- 
minds us  how  insignificant  a  circumstance  is  that 
which  we  call  death  in  the  annals  of  the  soul,  how 
little  it  can  affect  the  soul's  destiny  in  the  great 
results  of  immortal  life  and  illimitable  time. 
When  we  read  a  book  that  interests  and  instructs 
us,  when  we  study  a  character  that  moves  and 
quickens  us,  it  matters  little,  we  hardly  ask, 
whether  the  author  of  that  book  and  whether  that 
character  is  in  the  body  or  out  of  the  body.  They 
are  living  to  us  and  equally  present,  whether  they 
belong  to  that  part  of  the  host  which  has  crossed 
the  flood  or  to  that  which  is  crossing  now.  Nay, 
the  flood  itself  disappears,  the  narrow  stream  has 
dried  up,  the  two  banks  have  met  and  closed  while 
we  thus  communed.  And  the  oftener  we  thus 
commune,  the  more  we  shall  feel  that  death  is  of 
the  body  and  not  of  the  spirit,  — that  for  the  spirit 


ALL  SOULS'  DAY.  313 

there  is  no  this  world  and  that  world,  no  here  and 
there,  no  now  and  then,  but  one  unbroken  life,  an 
everlasting  now.  We  can  easily  conceive  that  the 
spirit  should  be  unconscious  of  the  body's  death, 
so  slight  is  the  influence  of  a  merely  physical  oc- 
currence on  the  spirit's  life. 

The  contemplation  of  the  dead  is  a  stimulus  and 
motive-power  to  the  living.  It  teaches  the  legiti- 
mate use  of  life ;  it  supplies  new  motives  to  faith- 
ful endeavor  and  earnest  pursuit  of  the  highest 
ends.  What  is  it  that  survives  of  the  dead  where- 
in and  whereby  they  still  live  and  speak  ?  It  is 
not  the  accidents  of  their  condition,  it  is  not  their 
possessions  or  enjoyments.  Death  has  stripped 
them  of  all  that  was  extrinsic.  Nothing  remains 
but  their  character  and  works.  Through  these 
alone  we  know  and  commune  with  them.  Accord- 
ing to  these  they  "take  rank  in  our  regard.  Ac- 
cording to  these  they  are  classed  and  graded  on 
the  scale  of  time.  Those  who  have  wrought  well 
have  made  mankind  their  debtors,  and  emblazoned 
their  names  on  the  heart  of  the  world.  Grateful 
posterity  has  registered  an  innumerable  company 
of  heroes  and  of  saints  who  have  blessed  the  world 
with  their  lives  and  made  it  fruitful  with  their 
deeds.  They  call  to  us,  with  all  the  voices  of  their 
renown,  to  follow  in  their  steps,  to  use  well  the 
golden  opportunities  of  life,  to  offer  up  ourselves  a 


314  ALL   SOULS'    DAY. 

living  sacrifice,  that  we  may  come  in  the  lustre  of 
useful  and  beneficent  lives  to  the  city  of  the  living 
God,  to  the  general  assembly  and  Church  of  the 
first-born,  and  to  the  spirits  of  the  just  made 
perfect. 


XXIII. 

COKSCIENCE. 

Their  conscience  also  bearing  ivitness. 

Romans  ii.  15. 

TVrO  question  which  the  human  mind  can  pro- 
^  pose  to  itself  is  more  momentous  than  that 
which  concerns  the  grounds  and  authority  of  the 
moral  law.  "We  have  the  ideas  of  right  and  wrong, 
of  moral  obligation,  of  moral  good  and  evil  as 
distinguished  from  material.  What  is  the  origin 
of  those  ideas  ?  Not  external  Nature,  whence 
most  of  our  ideas  are  derived.  Nature  knows 
nothing  of  any  moral  law.  "  The  deep  saith.  It  is 
not  in  me. "  The  heavens,  which  are  said  to  de- 
clare the  glory  of  God,  convey  no  whisper  of  a 
righteous  Lord.  Nature  is  unfeeling,  unmoral ; 
no  sympathy  with  innocence,  no  preference  of  vir- 
tue, is  manifest  in  all  the  world  of  sense.  The 
sun  shines  as  benignly  on  tragedies  of  violence 
and  strife  as  on  scenes  of  peaceful  industry ;  smiles 
as  serenely  on  battle-fields  reeking  with  carnage 
as  on   corn-fields  ripening  to  the   harvest.     Tlie 


316  CONSCIENCE. 

same  breeze  propels  the  pirate's  craft  and  the 
missionary's  sail.  Nature  knows  no  right  and 
wrong  except  as  reflections  of  the  hmnan  mind. 
These  ideas  come  from  within. 

There  is  a  faculty  in  man  —  an  inborn  faculty, 
I  think  we  may  call  it  —  which  manifests  itself 
in  three  distinct  functions:  (1)  It  distinguishes 
between  right  and  wrong,  — in  fact,  creates  that 
distinction ;  (2)  It  commands  the  right  and  forbids 
the  wrong,  independently  of  any  immediate  loss 
or  gain  accruing  from  the  one  or  the  other ;  (3)  It 
punishes  disobedience  with  suffering  more  or  less 
acute,  according  to  the  moral  development  of  the 
individual.  Moral  perception,  moral  obligation, 
moral  retribution,  — these  are  its  three  co-ordinate 
functions.  There  is  no  one  word  which  fully  ex- 
presses this  faculty.  We  call  it  conscience,  — 
a  word  which  properly  signifies  "accompanying 
knowledge;"  an  inadequate  designation,  but  we 
have  to  use  it  for  want  of  a  better,  —  conscience, 
or  the  moral  sense. 

Reflecting  on  this  faculty,  I  find  in  it  the 
strongest  proof  of  the  being  of  God,  —  the  God  of 
religion,  the  only  God  whom  it  greatly  concerns 
us  to  believe  in.  The  old  demonstrations  of  the 
being  of  God  have  lost  their  cogency  in  the  light 
of  modern  thought,  —  notably,  the  argument  from 
design.     The  old  theologians,  possessed  with  the 


CONSCIENCE.  317 

idea  of  God,   carried  that  idea  into  Nature,  and 
found  what  they  carried  and  what  they  would  never 
have  found  had  they  not  first  had  it  in  themselves. 
All  that  theology  can  honestly  infer  from  Nature 
is  almighty,   intelligent  power,  with  so  much  of 
beneficence  as  suffices  to  make  life  on  the  whole 
a    blessing,    and    thereby   to    perpetuate    animal 
existence  on  the  earth.     But  granting  —  what  all 
will  not  grant  —  that  the  universe  must  have  had 
an  intelligent  author,  that  author  in  all  that  the 
material  universe  reveals  is  known  to  me  only  as 
a  mighty,  incomprehensible  Power  with  which  I 
have  nothing  to  do  but  to  take  what  it  brings  in 
the   order   of  Nature   of  which  I  am  part.     An 
undiscriminating,  inexorable  Power,  regardless  of 
good  and  evil,  is  all  that  Nature  shows  of  God. 
But  this  is  not  what  we  mean  by  God ;   there  is 
nothing  here  of  the  Father  and  Friend,  and  noth- 
ing of  the  moral  Ruler  and  Lord.     But  conscience, 
the  feeling  I  have,  and  which  all  men  have,  of  moral 
obligation  refers  me  directly  to   a  higher   order 
than  that  of  the  visible  creation,   which  is  often 
apparently  in  conflict  with  it,  favoring  the  wicked 
(where  no  physical  conditions  are  violated)  and 
afflicting  the  good;    it  refers  me   to  a   Supreme 
Law,    as    the    head    and    source    of   that   higher 
order;   it  is  a  feeling  of  accountableness  to  that 
Supreme. 


318  CONSCIENCE. 

We  find  a  law  in  our  minds  which  commands 
and  forbids  without  regard  to  any  visible  advantage 
to  be  gained  by  doing  or  abstaining.  Whence  that 
law  ?  Whence  that  feeling  of  obligation  ?  Shall 
we  say  it  is  a  mental  illusion  ?  But  how  explain 
the  universality  of  that  illusion  ?  Shall  we  say  it 
is  the  creation  of  our  own  wills  ?  But  it  often 
requires  us  to  do  violence  to  our  own  wills,  to  put 
restraint  on  ourselves,  to  act  against  the  grain  of 
our  natures,  —  that  is,  our  natural  instincts  and 
desires.  It  commands  our  wills,  not  our  wills  it. 
Shall  we  say  it  is  a  social  tradition,  a  device  of 
governments,  hierarchical  or  secular,  whereby  to 
rule  more  securely  ?  But  we  find  it  prior  to  all 
priestly  or  civil  codes  and  institutions.  The  rudest 
savage  knows,  without  any  instruction  to  that  ef- 
fect, that  there  are  things  he  must  not  do,  and  he 
feels  compunction  in  doing  them.  Besides,  if  the 
moral  law  were  the  invention  of  governments,  un- 
conditional obedience  to  government  would  be  the 
universal  dictate  of  the  moral  sense,  the  funda- 
mental axiom  of  the  moral  code ;  but  the  dictates 
of  conscience  are  sometimes  found  to  contradict 
the  decrees  of  governments,  they  sometimes  en- 
join disobedience  to  the  powers  that  be.  Or  shall 
we  say  what  some  philosophers,  ancient  and 
modern,  have  maintained, — that  the  moral  sense  is 
resolvable  into  the  sense  of  utility,  that  experience 


CONSCIENCE.  319 

of  what  is  useful  and  what  is  hurtful  to  society 
has  taken  the  shape  of  law  and  assumed  its  au- 
thority ?  But  the  study  of  ethnology  will  show 
that  the  feeling  of  moral  obligation  precedes  all 
experience  of  utility;  and  cases  may  be  named 
where  utility  and  morality  seem  to  conflict, — 
for  example,  the  practices  of  exposing  infants  and 
putting  to  death  the  aged  might  seem  to  be  use- 
ful to  society ;  while  a  well-developed  moral  sense 
forbids  such  acts. 

Turn  the  matter  as  we  will,  we  are  forced  to  the 
conclusion  that  the  feeling  of  moral  obligation  in 
man  is  no  illusion,  or  human  invention,  or  govern- 
mental device.  We  are  forced  to  the  conclusion 
that  the  moral  law  is  the  voice  of  a  higher  than 
ourselves  or  than  any  earthly  power.  What  else 
can  it  be  ?  What  is  it  in  us  that  says  so  impera- 
tively, speaking  as  by  divine  right,  "  Thou  shalt  " 
and  "  Thou  shalt  not, "  —  which  orders  us  one  way 
while  every  passion  of  the  soul  and  every  nerve  in 
our  body  is  drawing  and  driving  us  in  another 
direction,  and  which  punishes  with  the  pangs  of 
remorse  disobedience  to  its  behests  ?  We  feel,  we 
know,  that  its  right  to  command  is  divine.  Call 
it  by  what  name  we  will,  this  uncontradictable, 
unbribable  autocrat  in  human  experience  has  more 
of  the  essence  of  Deity,  is  a  surer  witness  of  God, 
than   anything  else  that  man  on  this  earth  can 


320  CONSCIENCE. 

ever  know.  You  have  heard  of  the  saying  of  a 
great  philosopher,  that  two  things  above  all  others 
filled  him  with  profoundest  awe,  —  the  starry 
heavens  above  and  the  moral  law  within.  Both 
are  sublime ;  but  to  one  who  can  free  himself  from 
the  sensuous  illusion  of  size,  of  mere  material 
magnitude,  the  action  of  the  moral  law  is,  I  think, 
the  grander  of  the  two.  The  martyr,  obeying  his 
moral  convictions  in  the  face  of  persecution  and 
death,  putting  his  single  will  against  the  world, 
defying  Nature,  surrendering  his  flesh  to  the  rack 
when  a  word  might  set  him  free,  is  to  my  mind  a 
more  amazing  spectacle,  a  grander  object  of  con- 
templation than  suns  and  systems,  than  all  we 
see  or  conceive  of  material  grandeur,  stretch  our 
thought  as  we  will  "  from  star  to  star,  from  world 
to  luminous  world,  as  far  as  the  universe  spreads 
its  flaming  wall."  The  material  universe,  take 
conscience  out  of  it,  is  a  film,  nothing  more ;  and 
"  we  are  such  stuff  as  dreams  are  made  of. "  The 
moral  alone  gives  meaning  to  life. 

We  have  next  to  consider  the  relation  of  con- 
science to  human  well-being.  I  utter  a  truism 
when  I  say  that  social  order  is  not  only  dependent 
on  moral  conditions,  but  is  the  product  of  those 
conditions.  When  men  come  together  in  com- 
munities, they  enact  laws  for  mutual  protection. 
Those  laws  presuppose  and  appeal   to  the  moral 


CONSCIENCE.  321 

sense  for  their  observance.  Every  one  sees  that 
if  moral  considerations  were  universally  disre- 
garded and  set  aside,  if  no  respect  to  right  and 
wrong,  or  what  we  term  such,  determined  or 
controlled  the  conduct  of  men,  if  mankind  were 
governed  by  appetite  and  passion  alone,  if  so- 
ciety were  composed  of  individuals  whose  only 
aim  was  to  make  the  rest  of  mankind  subser- 
vient to  their  wants  without  regard  to  others' 
rights,  — every  one  sees  that  if  this  were  the 
character,  and  such,  and  such  only,  the  governing 
forces  of  society,  there  would  soon  be  an  end  not 
only  of  social  well-being,  but  of  social  existence ; 
a  complete  disruption  of  the  social  state,  univer- 
sal fighting  of  each  against  all,  and  chaos  come 
again.  Every  one  sees  that  there  must  be  a  cer- 
tain amount  of  conscientiousness,  of  what  we  call 
moral  qualities,  of  honesty  and  good-will,  of  chas- 
tity, sobriety,  truth,  and  honor,  to  make  society 
possible. 

But  a  question  may  be  raised  and  has  been  raised, 
—  whether  conscience  is  the  real  agent  in  this 
work ;  whether  the  supposition  of  a  separate  moral 
sense,  distinct  from  reason  and  understanding  and 
all  other  intellectual  faculties,  is  needed  for  this 
purpose ;  whether  the  same  results  may  not  be  at- 
tained by  complete  intellectual  development  which 
shall  lead  to  clear  discernment  of  what  in  the  long 

21 


822  CONSCIENCE. 

run  is  hurtful  and  what  beneficial  to  individuals  and 
society, —  in  other  words,  by  enlightened  selfish- 
ness. It  is  maintained,  as  I  have  said,  that  moral- 
ity is  only  another  name  for  utility, —  that  what  we 
call  the  moral  law  is  the  sum  of  the  axioms  de- 
rived from  men's  perception  of  what  is  useful  and 
what  is  pernicious.  I  believe,  on  the  contrary, 
that  without  the  moral  sense  as  a  guide,  the 
moral  utilities,  the  advantages  accruing  from  right 
conduct  would  never  have  been  discovered,  or  if 
discovered,  would  have  furnished  no  motive  suffi- 
ciently strong  to  counteract  the  temptations  of 
selfish  passion.  Intent  on  material  gain  or  sen- 
sual satisfaction,  pursuing  those  ends  alone,  men 
would  never  have  learned  that  justice  and  con- 
scious integrity  and  purity  and  self-restraint  yield 
greater  satisfaction  and  are  more  conducive  to 
happiness  than  ill-gotten  wealth  or  ill-gotten 
pleasure.  The  righteousness  which  is  found  to 
be  so  essential  to  prosperity  will  never  be  sought 
for  the  sake  of  that  prosperity.  A  man  may  be 
never  so  strongly  convinced  on  reflection  that 
moral  integrity  is  necessary  to  the  preservation 
of  the  social  order  and  personal  well  being,  yet 
if  destitute  of  moral  life,  he  will  not  be  induced 
to  obey  the  moral  law  by  any  such  considera- 
tion. The  selfish  instinct  is  too  imperative  and 
too  self-confident  to  be  controlled  by  any  theo- 


CONSCIENCE.  323 

retical  conviction.     It  will   seek   a  shorter  path 
to  its  goal  than  the  strictness  of  the  moral  law. 
It  is  a  true  saying,  that  honesty  is  the  best  policy. 
It  is   equally   true   that   policy   without   honesty 
would   never    have   arrived   at    that    conclusion. 
Selfish  cunning  does  not  take  righteousness  along 
with  it  as  an  aid  to  its  ends,  and  such  righteous- 
ness as  now  exists  in  the  world  did  not  come  by 
the  way  of  intellectual  enlightenment  and  shrewd 
calculation  of  uses  and  gains.     It  is  the  product 
of  that  conscience  which   is   not  an  intellectual 
perception  but  an  independent  principle  of  life, 
and  is  the  only  ingredient  in  the  compound  nature 
of  man  which  can  save  it  from  ruin  and  secure  its 
perpetuity  from  age  to  age. 

We  are  accustomed  to  say  that  the  stability  of 
our  republican  institutions  depends  on  popular 
education.  Educate  the  people  and  the  republic  is 
safe.  The  truth  of  that  saying  depends  on  what 
is  meant  by  education.  Reading  and  writing, 
grammar  and  arithmetic,  will  do  very  little  for 
the  preservation  of  the  State.  Intellectual  attain- 
ments though  they  be  of  the  highest,  science  devel- 
oped in  all  its  applications,  knowledge  universally 
diffused,  — there  is  no  efficacy  in  these,  however 
desirable  for  refinement  and  the  comfort  of  life ; 
there  is  no  efficacy  in  these  to  save  a  nation  or 
avert  its  downfall.     If  conscience  decays  while  the 


324  CONSCIENCE. 

intellect  ripens,  the  rottenness  will  spread  till  it 
eats  out  the  heart  of  the  nation's  life  and  prepares 
the  way  for  the  triumph  of  brute  force,  or,  what 
is  the  same  thing,  of  unscrupulous  demagogisni 
over  liberty  and  right.  Moral  training  is  the 
crying  want  of  the  time.  The  one  thing  needful 
for  the  safety  of  the  State  is  that  the  education 
of  the  moral  sense  in  the  young  keep  equal 
measure  with  intellectual  discipline.  By  what 
means  this  moral  education  is  to  be  accomplished 
is  a  question  too  wide  for  present  discussion. 
Suffice  it  to  sa}^  that  where  there  is  an  adequate 
conviction  of  its  necessity  the  means  will  not  be 
wanting. 

Passing  now  from  the  State  to  the  individual, 
we  find  in  conscience  the  true  custodian  and  only 
sure  safeguard  of  individual  well-being;  a  faith- 
ful monitor,  whose  voice  if  obeyed  is  a  guaranty  of 
peace  under  all  external  calamity,  if  disobeyed 
an  avenger  whose  punishments  countervail  all 
external  prosperity, —  punishments  which  the 
Greeks  figured  as  furies  pursuing  the  transgressor 
with  scorpion  stings.  The  greatest  suffering  of 
which  the  human  mind  is  capable  is  remorse. 
So  intolerable  has  it  proved  that  in  some  cases 
criminals  undetected  have  been  known  of  their 
own  free  will  to  surrender  themselves  to  justice, 
preferring  the  utmost  penalties  of  the  law  to  the 


CONSCIENCE.  325 

pangs  of  uncxpiated  guilt.  Others  have  sought 
refuge  in  suicide.  A  defaulting  paymaster  in  the 
service  of  the  United  States  wrote  in  his  letter  of 
confession :  "  It  is  a  relief  to  me  to  be  discovered, 
for  I  have  been  in  a  hell  on  earth  for  years." 
Would  this  man  have  used  such  language  if  con- 
science were  merely  an  intellectual  perception  of 
the  fit  and  the  unfit  ?  Had  he  embarked  his  pri- 
vate property  in  a  losing  speculation  and  become 
bankrupt,  the  mistake  might  have  caused  suffer- 
ing; but  how  different  such  suffering  from  the 
anguish  caused  by  the  conscious  guilt  of  a  violated 
trust  ! 

On  the  other  hand,  it  cannot  be  denied,  not 
only  that  conscience  is  less  active  in  some  na- 
tures than  in  others,  but  that  in  some  it  seems 
to  be  altogether  wanting.  It  has  been  found  pos- 
sible to  suppress  this  unwelcome  monitor,  to  si- 
lence its  protest,  to  ignore  absolutely  the  moral 
law.  Napoleon  I.  declared  that  the  moral  law 
did  not  apply  to  him.  He  deliberately  ruled  it 
out  of  his  calculations.  Others  have  done  the 
same,  and  by  stifling  conscience  have  won  a  seem- 
ing success.  The  question  arises :  Has  the  moral 
law  in  their  case  been  defeated  ?  Have  they 
outwitted  eternal  Justice  ?  So  it  would  seem  if 
worldly  success  is  synonymous  with  well-being, 
if  riches    and    rank    are   veritable    exponents   of 


326  CONSCIENCE. 

the  inner  life.  But  what  is  the  test  ?  What  is 
happiness  ?  What  is  well-being  ?  What  is  it 
that  at  bottom  we  all  are  seeking,  —  the  scrupu- 
lous and  the  unscrupulous  alike,  —  that  to  which 
all  other  seeking  is  but  means  to  an  end  ?  I 
will  call  it,  in  one  word,  self-possession.  To  pos- 
sess ourselves  completely,  secure  from  all  inward 
and  outward  annoyance,  —  that  is  the  best  that 
life  can  yield.  All  else  that  is  desirable  resolves 
itself  into  that.  Without  that  all  other  goods  yield 
but  a  partial  and  uncertain  satisfaction.  Which 
is  the  surest  road  to  that  full  possession  of  one's 
self, —  conscientious  living  or  unscrupulous  greed? 
is  a  question  which  answers  itself.  And  therein 
lies  the  answer  to  the  previous  question,  Has  the 
moral  law  been  defeated  by  prosperous  iniquity  ? 

Deeper  yet,  truth  of  all  truths,  the  moral 
law  in  man  is  the  present  God,  —  absolute  being. 
It  follows  that  violation  of  that  law  is  so  far  loss 
of  being,  interior  decay,  rottenness,  death.  Does 
any  one  think  by  stifling  conscience  to  sin  with 
impunity  ?  Let  him  know  that  the  world  on  which 
we  are  cast  is  projected  on  moral  principles  and 
cannot  proceed  nor  subsist  on  any  other.  It  re- 
ceives and  refunds  according  to  its  kind  our  every 
act.  Our  life  goes  out  of  us  industry  and  comes 
back  to  us  bread,  it  goes  out  of  us  caution  and 
comes  back  to  us  safety,   it  goes  out  of  us  duty 


CONSCIENCE.  327 

and  comes  back  to  us  peace;  or  else  it  goes  out 
of  us  negligence  and  comes  back  to  us  loss,  it 
goes  out  of  us  wrong  and  comes  back  to  us  shame, 
it  goes  out  of  us  sin  and  comes  back  to  us 
death. 

The  most  perilous  of  moral  states  is  that  in 
which  a  man  persists  in  evil  courses  and  feels  no 
pain  in  so  doing.  Remorse  is  bad  and  shame  is 
bad,  but  a  more  pitiable  evil  is  unconsciousness 
of  the  latent  enemy  which  is  secretly  consuming 
the  soul.  Of  that  state  Archbishop  Whately,  in 
his  notes  on  Lord  Bacon,  finds  a  striking  symbol 
in  insect  life.  There  is  an  insect  called  the 
ichneumon  fly  which  sometimes  pierces  the  body 
of  the  caterpillar  in  its  larva  state,  and  deposits 
eggs  which  are  hatched  and  feed  as  larvae  on  the 
inward  parts  of  their  victim.  A  singular  circum- 
stance connected  with  this  process  is  that  a  cater- 
pillar thus  attacked  goes  on  feeding  and  apparently 
thriving  quite  as  well  during  the  whole  of  its  larva 
life  as  any  other  insect  of  its  species.  For  by  a 
wonderful  provision  of  Nature  the  ichneumon  does 
not  injure  the  organs  of  the  larva,  but  feeds  only  on 
the  future  butterfly  enclosed  within  it.  It  is  im- 
possible to  distinguish  a  caterpillar  which  has 
these  enemies  in  it  from  any  other  until  the  close 
of  the  larva  life.  And  then  the  difference  ap- 
pears ;  for  while  those  larvae  which  have  escaped 


328  CONSCIENCE. 

the  parasites  assume  the  chrysalis  state  and  emerge 
as  butterflies,  of  the  unfortunate  caterpillar  that 
has  been  preyed  upon  nothing  remains  but  an 
empty  skin.  Is  there  not,  the  Archbishop  asks, 
something  analogous  to  this  in  human  life  ?  May 
not  a  man  have  a  secret  enemy  within  his  own 
bosom,  destroying  his  soul  without  interfering 
with  his  earthly  well-being  ? 

"  Conscience  also  bearing  witness. "  Saint  Paul 
affirmed  this  of  the  Gentile  nations  over  whom  the 
Law  of  Moses  had  no  control,  —  subjects  of  a  law 
which  transcends  all  written  codes.  With  wonder 
and  awe  I  contemplate  that  witness,  old  as  human 
nature  and  as  indestructible, —  conscience,  that 
power  in  man  which  reared  the  heavens  of  our 
truest  hope  and  dug  the  hell  of  conscious  guilt, 
which  voiced  by  Christ  caused  the  old  heathen 
world  to  shrivel  like  a  scroll,  which  stirred  by 
Luther  rent  Europe  in  twain, —  conscience  which 
sent  our  fathers  across  the  deep,  and  gave  us  this 
land  of  our  inheritance. 

Respect  that  witness,  listen  to  that  oracle,  heed 
its  testimony,  all  who  wish  well  to  yourselves  and 
mankind!  Let  no  earth-born  philosophy  impugn 
its  significance ;  for  as  God  liveth,  his  word  is  in 
it,  and  on  it  hangs  the  salvation  of  the  world. 


XXIV. 

THE  FUTURE  LIFE. 

It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  he. 

1  John  iii.  2. 

/^F  all  the  received  doctrines  of  our  religion 
there  is  none  concerning  which  such  crude 
ideas  have  prevailed  and  still  prevail  as  those 
which  respect  the  future  immortal  life;  there  is 
none  regarding  which  the  views  of  Christians  have 
more  widely  diverged,  none  whose  determinations 
by  Church  authority  have  so  little  warrant  in 
reason,  and  yet  there  is  none  in  which  the  light 
of  reason  is  more  needed. 

The  oracles  of  the  New  Testament  but  faintly 
illustrate  the  subject.  The  views  entertained, 
the  imagery  used  by  the  early  Church,  belong  to  a 
period  when  the  knowledge  of  the  material  uni- 
verse was  yet  in  its  infancy ;  when  this  earth,  of 
which  a  comparatively  small  portion  had  been 
explored,  was  regarded  as  the  whole  of  animate 
Nature,  — sun,  moon,  and  stars  being  only  the 
greater  and  lesser  lights  thrown  in  for  the  use  of 


330  THE  FUTURE  LIFE. 

man;  when  the  sky  was  conceived  to  be  a  solid 
dome  enclosing  these ;  when  God  was  supposed 
to  have  his  dwelling  in  a  fixed  locality  above, 
whence  he  looked  down  to  behold  the  children  of 
men;  and  when  the  ground  beneath  our  feet  was 
believed  to  be  the  cover  of  a  pit  where  the  souls 
of  the  departed  were  confined,  those  only  excepted 
whom  Christ  had  raised  up  to  dwell  with  him  in 
the  heights. 

Science  has  exploded  the  old  traditions.  The 
scientific  mind  refuses  to  believe  in  a  prison  of 
souls  under  ground;  it  refuses  to  believe  in  a 
simultaneous  resurrection  of  the  dead  on  a  certain 
day  announced  by  the  blast  of  a  trumpet;  it  re- 
fuses to  believe  in  a  local  heaven  above  the  skies. 
The  old  representations  of  heaven  and  hell  by 
Christian  poets  are  no  longer  admissible  even  in 
fiction.  But  what  has  science  established  in 
place  of  the  old  traditions  ?  Nothing  satisfac- 
tory, nothing  that  reason  and  hope  alike  accept. 
"It  doth  not  yet  appear  what  we  shall  be." 
Still  we  persist  to  inquire  if  haply  we  may  lift  a 
corner  of  the  veil.  Nor  is  it  wholly  an  idle  curi- 
osity that  seeks  to  explore  the  unknown  future. 
But  little  is  gained  by  wild  conjecture  peeping 
through  imaginary  "  gates  ajar, "  and  finding  what 
it  wishes  to  find,  while  verifying  nothing.  The 
fact  of  a  hereafter  of  the  soul  being  granted,  the 


THE  FUTURE   LIFE.  331 

nearest  approach  we  can  make  to  a  rational  theory 
concerning  it  must  begin  with  eliminating  error, 
and  not  with  dogmatic  assertion. 

One  error  which  still  lingers  in  the  popular 
mind  is  that  of  locality.  Men  dream  of  migrating 
to  some  new  place,  some  unknown  region  of  the 
universe  where  the  spirits  of  the  blest  are  to  have 
their  abode.  Paul  speaks  of  a  third  heaven  in 
accordance  with  the  Jewish  conception  of  three 
celestial  stages,  —  the  first  being  the  region  of 
the  clouds;  the  second,  the  starry  firmament; 
the  third,  the  dwelling-place  of  God  and  his 
saints.  The  latter  is  the  heaven  of  Christian  tra- 
dition. No  enlightened  person  nowadays  be- 
lieves in  any  such  locality.  Nevertheless,  as  I 
have  said,  there  abides  the  popular  impression  of 
a  local  heaven,  some  new  dwelling-place  to  which 
the  soul  is  transported  after  death,  — as  if  any 
region  of  the  universe  were  better  adapted  to 
moral  and  spiritual  uses  than  this.  And  these 
uses  are  all  that  really  concern  us  in  this  con- 
nection. What  need  of  migration  to  give  us  all 
that  other  worlds  can  supply  ?  Why  not  suppose 
that  the  soul  disencumbered  of  the  flesh  may  read 
in  God  whatever  is  or  passes  in  any  remote  world, 
and  through  the  divine  ubiquity  be  there  in  sym- 
pathy, perhaps  in  effect,  without  personal  presence  ? 
Have  you  a  friend  at  the  opposite  end  of  the  earth, 


332  THE  FUTURE  LIFE. 

you  may  at  any  moment  be  sympathetically  with 
him;  in  the  twinkling  of  an  eye  may  transport 
yourself  to  him  in  thought,  while  the  lightning 
loiters  on  the  telegraphic  road.  What  to  a  soul 
in  the  flesh  is  mere  subjective  experience,  mere 
thought,  may  to  a  soul  unconditioned  by  fleshly 
limitations  be  real  communication  through  union, 
as  I  said,  with  the  omnipresent  Mind.  There  are 
stories  which  tell  of  the  appearance  of  the  dying 
to  distant  friends.  I  am  forced  to  believe  in  the 
possibility  of  such  apparitions.  They  may  not  be 
an  actual  presence  of  the  object,  but  only  a  vision 
begotten  by  one  soul  on  another,  showing  however 
the  possibility  of  a  communication  of  soul  with 
soul  independently  of  place  and  time. 

Another  error  is  that  which  supposes  the  here- 
after to  be  for  all  who  escape  damnation  a  state  of 
unqualified  and  endless  happiness.  This  is  what 
heaven  means  in  the  vulgar  apprehension.  I  can- 
not but  think  it  a  misfortune  that  the  grand  doc- 
trine of  a  future  life  should  have  come  to  be  re- 
garded as  a  question  of  happiness  or  unhappiness, 
as  if  that  were  the  supreme  interest  of  the  soul. 
It  is  not  an  elevating  view  of  man's  immortal 
destination  which  makes  enjoyment  a  synonym  of 
heaven,  —  makes  that  the  main  thing,  the  all  in  all. 
Enjoyment  is  needed  in  this  life  to  relieve  and 
complement  low  conditions  of  humanity ;  but  even 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  333 

in  this  life  the  higher  we  rise  in  the  scale  of  being 
the  more  sober  life  becomes.  Beyond  the  bounds 
of  this  mortal  must  not  the  law  be  the  same  ? 
The  spirit's  growth  is  the  only  thing  in  the  here- 
after worth  considering,  —  the  only  object  for  which 
an  eternal  existence  is  wanted,  for  which  a  wise 
man  would  care  to  live  again.  To  settle  down  in 
a  view  of  immortality  in  which  this  is  not  su- 
preme; to  conceive  of  heaven  as  an  endless  holi- 
day, good  times  and  no  trouble,  an  eternity  of 
sweets,  —  degrades  the  whole  subject.  And  when 
I  hear  people  talk  of  going  to  heaven  as  a  place 
of  entertainment,  and  of  life  in  heaven  as  a  social 
reunion,  I  am  reminded  of  the  Japanese  fable  of 
the  frogs  who  climbed  a  hill  and  raised  them- 
selves up  to  view  the  country  beyond  of  which 
they  had  heard ;  but  standing  on  their  hind  legs 
and  having  their  eyes  in  the  back  of  their  heads, 
saw  only  the  country  they  had  left  behind.  It  is 
labor,  effort,  ay,  conflict,  suffering,  that  give  dig- 
nity to  life!  If  the  life  hereafter  is  to  have 
none  of  these,  but  only  pleasure,  then  I  say  it  is 
less  respectable  than  the  life  that  now  is.  Theo- 
logians have  discussed  to  satiety  the  question  of 
endless  suffering;  when  will  theology  face  the 
question  of  endless  happiness  ?  When  will  reason 
explode  those  saccharine  dreams  of  heaven  which, 
I  fancy,  are  more  demoralizing  than  the  fear 
of  hell  ? 


334  THE  FUTURE  LIFE. 

A  third  error  which  needs  to  be  eliminated  from 
the  vulgar  conception  of  heaven  is  that  which 
makes  it  a  finality,  —  which  conceives  that  the 
disembodied  soul  passes  at  once  from  the  wreck 
of  death  to  a  world  to  which  there  is  no  beyond, 
is  "fixed  in  an  eternal  state,"  where  fear  and  hope 
alike  expire  because  there  is  nothing  to  gain  or  to 
lose.  This  view,  which  if  not  dogmatically  af- 
firmed is  tacitly  assumed  and  seems  to  be  implied  in 
all  popular  discourse  of  the  future  state,  contradicts 
the  analogies  of  Nature,  our  surest  guide  in  these 
inquiries.  That  the  life  of  the  rational  soul  has 
but  these  two  epochs,  —  the  one  embracing  the  few 
years  of  earth,  the  other  the  sumless  ages  of  eternity ; 
that  our  little  earth-life,  say  the  life  of  a  child  that 
dies  in  its  fifth  or  its  first  year,  and,  compared 
with  what  follows,  the  years  of  the  octogenarian 
are  of  no  more  account,  —  that  this  little  earth- 
life,  I  say,  is  the  prelude  and  introduction  to  a 
life  that  has  no  end,  is  a  view  which  affronts  alike 
the  understanding  and  the  moral  sense.  I  will 
rather  suppose  that  as  this  life  is  prelude  and 
preparation  for  the  one  which  succeeds,  so  that 
again  is  prelude  and  preparation  for  another,  and 
that  for  still  another,  and  that  no  existence  of  a 
finite  immortal  can  be  absolutely  final.  How  far 
the  interstices  which  separate  these  successive  ex- 
istences or  stages  of   immortality  may  resemble 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  335 

death  I  do  not  care  to  inquire ;  but  I  believe  that 
breaks  and  interruptions  answering  to  the  death  of 
the  body  may  be  needed  to  divide  the  vast  reaches  of 
infinite  time,  in  order  that  the  soul,  refreshed  by 
sleep  and  forgetting,  may  resume  with  new-born 
vigor  and  hope  its  endless  road.  I  see  not  how 
else  a  finite  soul  can  bear  the  burden  of  its  past 
or  obtain  the  needful  renewing  of  its  life. 

If  then  we  strike  out  from  the  popular  concep- 
tion of  the  life  to  come  the  local  heaven,  the 
perennial  entertainment,  and  the  final  goal,  what 
remains  to  rational  faith  and  Christian  hope  of  the 
doctrine  of  immortality  ?  The  one  point  of  prime 
importance,  that  for  which  the  belief  in  immor- 
tality commends  itself  to  universal  reason,  is 
progress,  progressive  development  by  altered  con- 
ditions and  new  experience.  All  that  a  future 
existence  can  yield  beyond  the  capacity  of  the 
present  may  be  summed  under  three  heads,  — 
three  heavens  we  may  call  them.  They  repre- 
sent an  ascending  scale  of  beatitudes,  adjusted 
to  the  growing  wants  of  the  soul,  —  Rest,  Vision, 
Action. 

1.  Rest.  The  first  and  lowest  heaven  may  be 
indicated  by  the  word  "  rest. "  Under  this  name  I 
include  all  that  is  merely  passive  in  the  heavenly 
life,  all  that  is  given  us  by  new  conditions  of 
being,  the  immunities  appertaining  to  the  better 


336  THE  FUTURE  LIFE. 

world  of  Christian  hope,  and  which  mere  release 
from  the  flesh  and  from  fleshly  wants  may  be  ex- 
pected to  yield.  No  word  brings  heaven  so  near 
to  the  weary  soul  as  that  word  "rest."  After  a 
day  of  wearing  toil  and  harassing  care,  our  wishes 
are  apt  to  concentrate  in  the  thought  of  utter 
repose,  of  a  long,  unbroken,  dreamless  sleep. 
And  there  are  moments  when  the  whole  of  this 
earth-life  wears  such  an  aspect  of  stormy  dis- 
quietude, vexation,  and  suffering  that  all  we 
covet  is  release,  —  ■'  as  the  hireling  longeth  for 
the  shadow ; "  discharge  from  the  warfare  and 
ceaseless  friction  of  mortal  life,  — to  "shake  the 
yoke  of  inauspicious  stars  from  this  world-wearied 
flesh.'* 

Accordingly,  the  word  most  often  employed  by 
Scripture  and  hymn  to  denote  the  satisfactions  of 
the  life  to  come  is  "rest."  The  Hindu  religions 
pursued  this  idea  beyond  the  scope  of  Christian 
thought.  Starting  with  the  doctrine  that  exist- 
ence as  such  is  an  evil,  that  for  even  the  most  for- 
tunate and  blessed  it  were  better  not  to  have  been 
born,  and  that  therefore  the  penalty  for  the  sins  of 
this  life  is  to  live  again  in  some  other  body,  and 
still  again  until  mortal  sins  are  all  wiped  out, 
they  arrived  at  the  logical  result  that  the  supreme 
good,  the  heaven  which  awaits  the  finally  emanci- 
pated soul,  is  Nirvana^  absorption  in  God,  and  with 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  337 

it  cessation  of  individual  conscious  life.  The 
"rest"  of  the  Christian  heaven  stops  short  of  this, 
although,  as  sometimes  presented,  it  borders  on 
Nirvana,  and  contains,  if  rigorously  analyzed,  a 
character  of  nihilism;  as  where  good  Dr.  Dod- 
dridge sings,  — 

**  Fain  would  we  quit  this  weary  road, 
And  sleep  in  death  to  rest  with  God." 

The  rest  contemplated  by  Christian  believers 
does  not  mean  the  rest  of  unconsciousness,  but 
release  from  mortal  harms  and  plagues,  immunity 
from  all  disquietude  and  tribulation,  existence 
without  struggle  or  friction.  This  is  the  supposed 
rest 

"  That  for  the  Church  of  God  remains 
The  end  of  cares,  tlie  end  of  pains,  "  — 

very  soothing,  very  consoling,  very  needful  per- 
haps, in  certain  moods  of  the  storm-tossed  mind, 
but,  let  us  confess,  not  very  uplifting,  not  very 
inspiring,  not  sufficing  to  our  best  aspiration,  not 
equal  to  the  highest  idea  of  immortality.  Let 
us  leave  this  lower  heaven  and  ascend  in  our 
thought  to  the  next  above  it,  the  heaven  of  — 

2.  Vision.  One  of  the  noblest,  the  most  persis- 
tent and  inappeasable  cravings  of  human  nature 
is  the  thirst  for  knowledge,  the  desire  to  penetrate 
all  mysteries,  to  pierce  to  the  innermost  heart  of 
truth,    to   see  face   to  face,   to  know   as  we   are 

22 


388  THE  FUTURE  LIFE. 

known.  This  want  the  old  theology  met  with  the 
promise  of  the  "Beatific  Vision,"  to  which  the 
perfected  soul  was  admitted  as  the  last  reward  of 
faitlifulness,  the  consmnmation  of  all  blessedness, 
the  joy  of  contemplating  absolute  Truth,  the  ec- 
stasy of  knowing  all  that  can  be  known,  —  all  that 
the  curious  mind,  forever  baffled  in  its  search, 
vainly  tugging  at  the  veil  which  shrouds  the  mys- 
tery of  things,  had  failed  to  discover  while  bound 
by  mortal  limitations,  — all  "that  the  angels  de- 
sire to  look  into ; "  of  knowing  it,  not  by  uncertain 
report,  but  by  reading  its  idea  in  the  mind  of  God, 
gazing  with  rapt  contemplation  on  the  Uncreated 
Light  in  which  all  truth  is  revealed,  —  this  the 
mediaeval  theology  figured  as  the  last  and  highest 
heaven.  Dante,  who  represents  that  theology  and 
sings  that  heaven,  says,  — 

"  It  may  not  be  that  one  who  looks 
Upon  that  Light  can  turn 
To  other  object  wiUingly  his  view. 
For  all  the  good  that  will  can  covet, 
There  is  summed,  and  all,  elsewhere 
Defective,  found  complete." 

No  doubt,  to  see  and  know  is  consummate  bliss. 
I  can  imagine  the  soul  to  bask  unwearied,  to  bask 
forever  in  the  joy  of  contemplation,  seeking, 
dreaming  of  nothing  beyond.  But  viewing  the 
matter  in  the  light  of  practical  reason,  I  ask  my- 
self: Are  seeing  and  knowing,  after  all,  the  su- 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  339 

preme  thing,  the  highest  that  thought  can  imagine, 
the  uttermost  to  which  will  can  aspire  ?  Contem- 
plation is  passive,  and  it  seems  to  me  that  if  the 
beatitude  of  vision  is  the  goal  where  all  the  yearn- 
ings of  the  soul  and  all  its  strivings  and  all  its 
discipline  end,  such  a  consummation  would  have 
but  little  advantage  over  the  Nirvana,  or  absorp- 
tion in  God,  of  the  Buddhist  faith.  Across  all 
these  ecstasies  of  vision,  as  I  think  of  them  in  my 
musing  on  the  future  of  the  soul,  I  hear  a  voice 
saying,  "  Come  up  higher ! "  Vision  is  divine,  but 
there  is  something  diviner. 

3.  Action.  The  third  and  highest  heaven,  as  I 
gauge  the  souPs  destiny,  is  action.  That  which 
we  most  adore  in  God,  is  not  the  omniscience 
to  which  all  things  are  manifest,  but  the  love- 
power  which  manifests  itself  in  all  things.  It 
is  not  his  word,  but  his  work,  in  which  the  God- 
head is  complete.  And  if  we  may  speak  of  the 
joy  of  God,  who  for  a  moment  will  compare  the 
joy  of  beholding  with  the  joy  of  creating  ?  Who, 
if  such  works  were  possible  to  finite  being,  would 
not  rather  be  able  to  create  the  smallest  flower, 
to  give  life  to  the  simplest  creature,  than  to 
know  every  secret  of  Nature  ?  Great  is  the  joy 
of  the  seer  in  his  vision;  greater  the  joy  of 
the  artist  in  his  work.  The  Easter  song  in 
"Faust"  speaks  of  the  risen  Christ  as  "near  to 


340  THE  FUTURE  LIFE, 

creative  joy."  That  seems  to  me  the  climax  of 
all  blessedness.  I  can  figure  to  myself  no  greater 
]oY  than  that  of  co-operating  with  creative  Intelli- 
gence, if  he  with  whom  being  and  creating  are 
one  shall  choose  to  confer  that  privilege  on  his 
elect.  But  whether  or  not  this  special  privilege, 
the  joy  of  creating,  shall  be  vouchsafed  to  the 
more  advanced  stages  of  spirit  life,  beneficent  ac- 
tion in  one  or  another  mode,  beneficent  action  by 
every  agency  possible  to  finite  natures,  I  conceive 
to  be  an  essential  feature  and  the  supreme  element 
in  the  blessedness  of  heaven,  —  a  blessedness  tran- 
scending even  the  Beatific  Vision.  Without  in- 
tensest  and  ceaseless  action  the  life  to  come  would 
want,  in  my  view,  its  crowning  joy.  In  this  house 
of  our  mortality  the  lagging  will,  the  exhausted 
nerves,  the  feeling  of  utter  weariness,  and  often 
of  incompetence  and  failure  in  our  utmost  effort, 
may  fmd  relief  in  the  anticipation  of  perfect  rest; 
but  our  truest  thought  and  highest  mood  will  seek 
in  action  the  beatitude  nearest  to  God,  in  fellow- 
ship of  work  with  the  Ever- working  its  highest 
heaven. 

To  the  question  where  in  the  universe  of  worlds 
this  heaven  may  be  found,  I  answer,  Here.  And 
by  "Here"  I  mean  wherever  the  question  may 
arise,  —  on  this  earth  or  in  the  farthest  star. 
Death  is  not  a  locomotive  by  which  the  soul  is 


THE  FUTURE  LIFE.  341 

transported  to  some  distant  sphere,  but  a  drop- 
ping of  the  veil  of  flesh  which  hides  the  spiritual 
world  from  our  sight.  With  the  dropping  of  that 
veil  the  seen  and  temporal  melts  into  the  eter- 
nal. When  the  sun  sets,  new  suns  come  forth; 
and  when  the  material  world  fades  from  our 
bodily  eyes,  the  vision  comes  of  the  immaterial 
which  underlies  and  overlies  and  pervades  and 
upholds  it;  and  with  the  vision  will  come,  let  us 
hope,  the  new-born  will  and  the  new  career. 


THE   END. 


Date  Due 


T 


'4Z 


oil  '44 


Princeton  Theological  Seminary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  01033  3427 


